


and in the end we go back to the start

by Vadianna



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: (they're really awful), Force-Sensitive Hux, Inappropriate Use of the Force, M/M, Manipulation, Possession, identity crisis, is it grave robbing if you disturb your own grave?, lying, possible inappropriate use of lightsabers, they rummage through skeleton robes and there's an image of that, unhealthy relationship dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-11
Updated: 2019-11-11
Packaged: 2021-01-23 23:34:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 50,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21328516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vadianna/pseuds/Vadianna
Summary: Supreme Leader Kylo Ren has been searching for years, attempting to uncover any and all information about the Emperor's Contingency Plan.  It is said that Darth Sidious had conquered death, and Kylo believes that resurrecting the powerful Force user is a path to unlocking his own potential.He finds what he needs in the abandoned Arkanis training academy, where Brendol Hux's code cylinder finally gives him access to information about the Emperor's clone program and the sacrifice that must be performed at the place Darth Sidious died.And so the Supreme Leader orders General Hux to accompany him on a mission to salvage the second Death Star.
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Armitage Hux/Kylo Ren
Comments: 113
Kudos: 402
Collections: Kylux Big Bang 2019





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A collaboration with [itssteffnow](https://twitter.com/itssteffnow) for the Kylux Big Bang 2019! The gorgeous pages throughout are all hers, along with the fantastic original prompt, the title, and months of writing support and encouragement throughout the KBB.

_"He who learns to conquer death will through his greatest student live again."_

\- Jedi Prophecy

* * *

“Are they getting bored? I thought you brainwashed that out of them years ago.”

Kylo managed to keep his voice level as he needled Hux, who knew better than to interrupt him with issues like _the Troopers are worried_. The holocomm was currently projecting Hux in miniature from the waist up above his datapad. He looked much the same as he always did - posture military perfect, hair swept back and neatly kept, expression pale and inscrutable, even over the blue staticky flicker of the poor connection.

Kylo, for his part, was not projecting his own image. He knew Hux hated not seeing his face when they spoke.

“The Captain only expressed concern that the Supreme Leader had been sequestered for over twenty hours, and the last instructions were for all Troopers to stand alert and on guard outside the compound. It was within her professional parameters to comm for a wellness check. Certainly you can understand. And as Supreme Leader, you are also compassionate enough to understand that twenty hours is two full duty shifts, which is unreasonable outside of battlefield conditions. You will also be aware that standard procedure dictates that you should have checked in and ordered a change of guard hours ago.”

“Did you comm to lecture me on compassion, General?”

Kylo heard Hux pause at this, and saw his shoulders tense slightly. He knew what Hux _wanted_ to say, but he rarely did so, not since Kylo had seized power. Not when they were working.

“No, Supreme Leader.” Hux’s voice was level and perfectly controlled. His expression did not change. “I am merely following the proper chain of command, and your orders, as given. I am the only one that comms you, as you know, and an inquiry was made by your Stormtrooper guard, who should have been relieved over twelve hours ago.”

“Noted.” Kylo waved his hand to dismiss the comm without warning, annoyed. Would Hux have dared say any of that to Snoke?

Dismissing the comm plunged the room back into near-total darkness. Without the hum of the datapad, Kylo could once again hear the steady pounding of rain against the ruin of the roof at Arkanis Academy. He had no idea what time it was, local or Galactic Standard. It had been daylight when he arrived, and if Hux wasn’t exaggerating, it might be the middle of the night now. Or not. Kylo hadn’t bothered to look up the day cycle of Arkanis.

The First Order maintained a more modern training facility on Arkanis, closer to Scaparus Port, but Kylo was only interested in the old Imperial Academy, still standing in the mountains, isolated from most of the cities. It was only still standing because no one had bothered to tear it down. It had gone unused for over thirty years, abandoned immediately after Arkanis had fallen to the New Republic forces at the end of the war. All the roads, tech, and landing equipment had fallen into disrepair, and newer facilities had opened that were more convenient to the current populations. The Academy was a derelict relic, a memorial to the lost Empire.

Kylo was in the main admin suite, which was still technically powered by the emergency batteries - they had kept the minimum of tech running, but were low enough after decades of no-maintenance standby that the lighting and ventilation no longer worked. The room reeked of mold, and Kylo would need to get a med scan back on the _Finalizer_ to ensure that he was not inhaling anything that would infect his respiratory system.

He was sitting on a wobbly stool, his feet propped on a lower rung above several inches of standing, stagnant water. More water was pouring in from the corner of the room through a gap in the roof. The water, and the entire building, was frigid. It had a sickly, swampy stink to it.

But it wasn’t the building, or the roof, or the lack of lighting that Kylo was interested in. None of that mattered. The old computer system was still operational enough to interface with his datapad, and it had granted him access to the old Imperial data network at the Academy, which was the only thing he cared about.

The problem was, even with the well-preserved network of the Arkanis Imperial Academy at his fingertips, he still couldn’t find what he was looking for. Anywhere. He was loathe to leave, because if he couldn’t find what he needed here, he didn’t know where else to look.

What he needed was very specific, and he’d been searching for years, in every place he could think to find it. He very badly wanted to know the details of the Emperor’s Contingency Plan, the safety net that Sheev Palpatine had set into motion in the event of his death to save his Empire. The Contingency Plan was real, of that Kylo was certain. The aging First Order officers that had worked previously for the Empire talked about it religiously, were certain that they were carrying out the Emperor’s will. Sloane, Rax, Gerston, and Setwat had all spoken of it directly, and had given the orders that guided the Order out of the Imperial era and into modern times.

But Sloane, Rax, Gerston, and Setwat were all dead. As was anyone who held significant rank in the old Empire. As far as Kylo could tell, the Emperor had trusted very few with the Contingency. He would have wanted to keep it safe. Kylo knew well enough that the low-level sycophants were worthless. Kylo wouldn’t trust any of them to do his laundry, let alone execute his will after his death. Anyone worth trusting had died in the war and the transition.

Kylo had heard of the plan shortly after joining the Order, when an officer had spoken of it in Snoke’s presence. Snoke’s reply, though snide and off-hand, had changed Kylo’s low opinion of the Order:

_Are we following the Emperor’s will? Of course, Captain! You are welcome to resurrect him at your leisure.”_

It was the _resurrection_ that had interested Kylo. Snoke had explained later, dismissively, that Darth Sidious had stolen the secrets of eternal life from Darth Plagueis, if you were foolish enough to believe that. Would that we all had a contingency plan to come back to life once we died.

Kylo didn’t think it was foolish. Luke had told him about Force ghosts, the Jedi Masters that had trained him from beyond death. Luke… could not be trusted, but Kylo knew the Force ghosts were real. More than that, Luke had related the story of his grandfather Darth Vader, that Darth Sidious had seduced him with the promise of the power to conquer death.

Luke had learned the story from the ghost of the Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi, whose name had never really been Ben, just as Kylo’s hadn’t. Kylo knew this story was true too, because why would a ghost lie?

Kylo wanted that. Kylo wanted Darth Sidious, and his student Darth Vader, to return to life through a miracle of the Force. Kylo was certain that was the Emperor’s real Contingency Plan. Kylo wanted to be the one to resurrect him, and to be the first who spoke to them both. He knew that was what the Force willed, he could sense the truth of it.

After hearing Snoke’s dismissive remarks about resurrection, Kylo had become more of a student of the Force than he ever had under his former Master. He sent the Knights of Ren to raid any former Temple they could find. Kylo read every scrap of knowledge they gathered.

Nothing.

He began reviewing the history of the Order, the private records of those who led the transition. He sought out what was left of the old Imperial records. But he found that, even as the Supreme Leader’s apprentice, his access was limited.

When he finally became Supreme Leader of the First Order, and after the dust had settled on Crait, the only thing he had wanted with his new position was access to those histories. _Carte blanche_ to read anything he wanted, past and present, and the ability to act on what he learned unquestioningly. But all he found with his new access was that the First Order leadership was as clueless as he was.

Sloane had actually moved the Order _away_ from the Contingency plan, in an effort to make something better. Rax’s records had been on the long-lost wreck of the _Ravager_ and an abandoned bunker on Jakku, and had been encrypted in such a way that they had purged themselves when Kylo had attempted to access them. Gerston’s records had been aboard the Super Star Destroyer _Annihilation_, which had been lost in Wild Space. Kylo had never found Setwat’s records.

Furious, he’d tried everything. He’d gone back to former Imperial strongholds - the palace on Coruscant, the Imperial garrison on the moon of Ryloth, the former InterGalactic Banking Clan stronghold on Scipio, the old droid plants on Colla IV. All of them had Imperial encryption that his First Order access did not affect. Certain files also purged themselves when he tried. No one currently with the Order had ever held a rank higher than Line Captain. Kylo had looked for Admirals and Moffs outside the Order, on their former home worlds or in Republic custody. They were all dead, of course, their Imperial secrets and their code cylinders lost.

Months passed, and Kylo realized that the incompetence of the First Order was insurmountable. He wanted badly to resurrect the Emperor. He meditated, in an effort to calm himself and find new objectives. Sometimes, he felt as if his grandfather encouraged him. Once, he thought Darth Sidious himself had told him to continue.

He’d nearly given up by the time he’d found the old Imperial code cylinders in Hux’s quarters. Kylo had realized they could only have belonged to Brendol Hux. Brendol had been a Commandant of an Imperial Academy, which was insignificant in the scope of the Empire. Kylo had nearly destroyed the cylinders out of spite, but in thinking about why Hux even had them, he realized… why had Brendol escaped the invasion of Arkanis? Why had Admiral Rax gone out of his way to put such a man on his Shadow Council? Brendol had, by all accounts, been a disaster, and Armitage had been a child. A child that Brendol had no love for, if the rumors were true.

As Kylo had rolled the code cylinders between his thumb and index finger in the dark of Hux’s quarters, he realized Brendol would have full access to any restricted files on Arkanis. And that Brendol’s position on the Shadow Council meant that there might be something worth seeing there. It was the best lead Kylo had ever found.

He’d stolen the cylinders. If Hux had noticed, or made the connection to his trip to Arkanis, he hadn’t mentioned it.

Brendol’s cylinders gave Kylo access to everything in the aging Arkanis system, but Kylo soon realized this meant little, if he had no idea what he was looking for. Searches for “contingency” turned up nothing but war protocol. “Post-Empire” turned up nothing. Searches for things like “Jedi” and “Force” brought up voluminous records, everything from pre-Imperial visiting Jedi protocol from the Academy’s days as a diplomatic training facility to tests that were performed to check for Force sensitivity in the very young.

The tests were barbaric. In the Imperial era, the protocol for Force-sensitive children had been to purge and cover up. Brendol had been quite ruthless.

There were a lot of dead ends, but not enough to fill twenty hours of fruitless research. Kylo had fallen asleep, or possibly meditated, hunched over a rusted console and his dim datapad. Hux’s holocall had woken him up.

Fucking Hux, interrupting him. It was ridiculous that the Stormtroopers wouldn’t just comm him directly. It was how the First Order hierarchy worked, and Hux loved nothing better than being at the top of his little manufactured bureaucracy. Of course Hux was the only person with access to Kylo, and not the Stormtrooper Captain.

It was easier that way, admittedly. Kylo would have immediately cut the Captain’s comm short. Kylo hated talking to most anyone, especially the vicious little officers who always tried to seek favors and promotions directly from him. At least when Hux interrupted him, it was sometimes entertaining. He could get under Hux’s skin so easily.

Fucking Hux.

Sitting in a dark, frigid room by himself and facing intolerable failure, Kylo turned his datapad back on, started the Imperial interface, and did a search for HUX, ARMITAGE. If nothing else, maybe he’d find out that little Armitage had been a bed wetter, or got cut from the geet ball team.

The system pinged, then flashed a warning for an Imperial Restricted Access file.

Kylo blinked. He’d browsed dozens of files for Force-sensitive students earlier, several of which documented atrocities, but none had been restricted.

When he tried to open HUX,ARMITAGE, he found that the file was fully restricted to Brendol’s security clearance, which was absurd. The only non-restricted information available for Hux was his name - given fully as ARMITAGE, without a surname - and that he was a native of Kamino.

Had Hux really been such a poor student that Brendol had locked his file behind the highest security clearance at the Academy? And _Kamino_? Hux was a Kaminoan? As far as Kylo knew, there had never been a human colony on Kamino, so maybe his mother had been staff. Hux had never mentioned it, possibly because Kylo would bring it up as often as possible. Hux hated aliens, and Kylo had a near-inexhaustible supply of xeno questions he could now ask whenever he pleased, like when Hux snidely asked for a translator during meetings, or when they were having sex.

Kylo had been using the restricted access available on Brendol’s first code cylinder, and hadn’t yet found a use for the second. Without thought, he touched it to the console, and heard a chime as the screen turned blue and filled with text. Kylo began scanning the information in Hux’s file.

Which was.

It was.

Hux was Kaminoan because he was a _clone_. Of _Sheev Palpatine_.

The datapad nearly slid off Kylo’s lap. _Fucking Hux_? The one who made a face when Kylo tracked mud into the Star Destroyer? The one who went from trying to murder Kylo to suggesting they might as well fuck? The one who carried around a little knife in his sleeve and probably couldn’t fire a blaster straight to save his life?

_Fucking Hux_ was a _clone of Sheev Palpatine_. As in. Hux was from one of the noblest and well-regarded historical families on Naboo. He was identical to The Supreme Chancellor. The Emperor of the Galaxy. Darth Sidious.

Hux was…

Hux was as Force-sensitive as a rock, and as oblivious as one. Hux’s idea of clever politics was inviting a rival to dinner and cancelling on them.

_Fucking Hux_.

It wasn’t right. But it was locked in a place that only Brendol could see, and as Kylo scrolled through, incredulous, it was all there. ARMITAGE had been one of a dozen clones commissioned by the Emperor after the Clone Trooper program had been perfected on Kamino. He’d been brought to Arkanis as an infant straight from the vat, and Brendol had been given orders to imply that ARMITAGE was his illegitimate son.

Kylo had heard that rumor himself, whispered snidely by the older Imperials. Brendol’s bastard. Kylo had always thought it a bizarre criticism, when one of their internal propaganda campaigns was “The Order Needs Children.” Any and all children were celebrated, their parents rewarded. No one cared where they came from, so why was Armitage still Brendol’s bastard?

Brendol’s cover must have worked too well. And… this was why Rax had gone to such lengths to recover the two of them from Arkanis.

Right.

Kylo set the datapad down gently on the rusted console and stared blindly into the darkness above the screen for several minutes. Armitage Hux was a clone of Sheev Palpatine, and had turned out like _that_?

Kylo had a sudden, vivid memory of Hux’s nails in his back, his legs wrapped around Kylo’s waist, telling Kylo that he fucked like the celibate social reject he was, and to go harder.

He banished the memory, absolutely did not want to think about that right now. Kylo didn’t know anything about the Kamino clone program. Hux couldn’t be an exact clone of Sheev Palpatine, because people would recognize him. Right?

Kylo picked his datapad back up and scrolled past the data that suggested Hux was exactly that. He saw, even more incredibly, that Hux’s file also contained a section titled CONTINGENCY PLAN: IN THE EVENT OF THE EMPEROR’S UNLIKELY DEATH - FOR ARMITAGE’S GUARDIAN ONLY - RESTRICTED RESTRICTED RESTRICTED

Kylo almost forgot to breathe as he clicked through the security warnings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jedi prophecy is from _Master & Apprentice_ by Claudia Gray.


	2. Chapter 2

Fucking Hux, incidentally, was an activity that Kylo greatly enjoyed. He got what he needed from Hux, though the way he got it always felt like some kind of failure. Kylo had never had a partner as infuriating as Hux.

“Go _faster_. If I wanted to take my time, I would use a toy and save myself the trouble of speaking to you.”

Kylo’s blood was thrumming hot through his body as he rocked his hips in a slow rhythm. He was face down in Kylo’s bed, ass in the air, with Kylo kneeling behind him, hands on his hips to give himself leverage as he penetrated him. Hux’s head was turned, and he was glowering at Kylo through the mess of his hair. He ran his own fingers through it during sex, pulling it as Kylo pounded him. His other hand was under his face, bracing himself against Kylo’s thrusts.

His ass was as hot and tight as he ever was. Kylo stroked a hand across the pale expanse of his back, skin white and smooth and perfect, a stark contrast to the red flush that heated his face from anger and, presumably, pleasure, though Kylo was never completely sure of that. He could pull it from his thoughts, but he’d never cared enough to check.

Kylo thrust once, deep and hard enough to make Hux grunt. “Call me Supreme Leader.”

“I’ve had better fucks from new recruit troopers. Earn it.”

Kylo thrust deep and fast three more times, hard enough to make the bed groan against the frame. “I did earn it. I killed the last person that tried to tell me what to do.”

“So you killed Snoke, but only when we’re having sex? Will we be back to accusing the scavenger of regicide after you come? Let me know when you want me to stop wasting resources on locating Snoke’s murderer.”

Kylo closed his eyes and turned his head. He hated himself for tolerating this. But no one spoke to him this way, and Kylo found that Hux’s bedroom insults went straight to his dick. Hux knew this, of course, and let his tongue free when they were together like this. Conversely, Kylo knew that Hux found slow, almost affectionate sex horribly arousing. This was so absurd that Kylo indulged him, to a point. But he was too close to finishing, so he did as Hux asked and began moving fast and regular.

“I don’t know why I tolerate you,” Kylo grunted between thrusts. “I can have anyone I want. A wave of my hand, and they’ll be in my bed.”

Hux was panting now, the muscles in his shoulders bunched and flexed as he braced himself with two hands. “Charming. Is that the only way you’ve done it before?”

“You’re the one that asked me. What does that say about you?”

“That I like big cocks.”

This was true, and Kylo had an abnormally large cock. He hadn’t often had sex before Hux, though he would never admit this. Not long ago, he’d tried to annoy Hux by calling him to his workout suite for a briefing. Hux hadn’t reacted, of course, and Kylo had pushed to see how far he could go before Hux would say something. He’d taken his clothes off to step in the ‘fresher, still spouting barely-coherent orders about Trooper placement. At that point, Hux had stopped him, pointed to his cock, and asked if he knew how to use it.

Hux, it turned out, was generally self-sufficient when it came to sexual pleasure, but only because the toys he used for anal stimulation were larger than most human cocks.

After that, there had been this. Increasingly frequent, but still as impersonal as Kylo could make it.

He was very close now, and he could sense the building pressure in Hux, a pull at his awareness that always helped him to climax. He leaned over, pressing his sweaty chest to Hux’s back, dragging his lips along the back of his neck, where his hair fell in a part to either side. He slid one hand up Hux’s side, clamping it over his mouth as he roughly grabbed his dick with the other. 

Hux’s secret shame, the thing that turned him on the most, was being held close. Hux hadn’t told him this, but Kylo knew, could sense it in his thoughts and in his physical reactions. He was always sure to do it just before they finished.

He turned his mouth to Hux’s ear, and spoke in a low murmur. “Do you stuff one of your big rubber cocks in your mouth when you’re by yourself, or is your voice what gets you off?”

Hux went stiff below him, moaning against Kylo’s hand and sucking fast breaths through his nose. Kylo was still thrusting erratically, so close, but he needed the push of Hux’s orgasm to get his own - for whatever reason, this was always how he came with Hux, always after.

Hux was sometimes difficult to push over the edge, always needing a little more. He couldn’t angle himself right while bent over him, so instead, he squeezed Hux’s mouth harder, twitching his fingers enough to pull on his nipples with the Force.

Hux made another loud, muffled noise into Kylo’s hand and came into his fist. Kylo sighed into his ear, letting the strength of Hux’s orgasm rebound through his awareness, pushing him over the edge as he thrust one last time and came inside him.

After a few moments of panting, sweaty silence, he pulled himself out, rolling over onto the bed and closing his eyes to gather his thoughts.

The first thing that came to him was that he should have come on Hux, rather than in. He’d been planning on pulling out and coming onto his chest, because Hux was Sheev Palpatine’s clone, and Kylo liked the idea.

The lights were at 30%, and the room was too hot. Hux was still on his knees, ass in the air, as unselfconscious as always about collecting himself. Kylo waited, his thoughts brushing at the edges of Hux’s consciousness, trying to get a better read of Hux’s emotions without being obvious. He needed to be sure of Hux’s reactions for the conversation they were about to have.

Finally, Hux sat up, his bowed back to Kylo, the knobs of his spine prominent, his hair an absolute mess. He ran a hand through it compulsively.

“Stay,” Kylo asked, reaching a hand across the bed and rolling on his side to see Hux’s body language.

Hux tensed visibly, taking a moment before turning to look at Kylo, his face in profile. “And do what?”

The sharp tone was gone from his voice, the insults had been tucked away. Hux sounded weary, and Kylo felt his caution in the Force, something like Hux’s flight response firing in the back of his brain. Kylo had to be careful, but he was sure he could handle Hux.

“Just stay.”

Hux turned more fully to face him, his face frozen carefully neutral. It was his usual expression, made much less severe by the nudity and the wreck of his hair. He always wore his silver ID tags during sex, and they were visible now against his bare chest, dull in the low light of the room.

“I believe I still have some tasks to complete-”

“Don’t be like that,” Kylo interrupted, a little sharply, before reeling his temper back in. “I don’t care. I want you to stay the night.”

Hux visibly balked at this, frowning at Kylo and sliding to the edge of the mattress in an almost defensive position, as if Kylo would jump up to attack him. As if Hux could really get away if he did.

“Why?”

Kylo made sure to drop his gaze in an attempt to look more hesitant. Also, he wasn’t sure he could actually say the next part while looking at Hux. But it needed to be said, he had to offer vulnerability to make Hux believe him. “I don’t know. You’re the only one I talk to. At all. I thought about it on Arkanis.”

Kylo glanced up to see that Hux had thinned his lips. He was wary, but it was a good sign that he was no longer trying to hide his expression.

“Did you think about it before or after you hung up on me when I told you the Troopers were complaining?”

“It was after. I…” Kylo paused, and decided the truth would be more persuasive. But he had to drop his gaze again. “I was annoyed by the interruption. As you know. And that you were the one that had to comm me and not the trooper captain directly. Then I realized that you were the only one who ever comms me.”

“Because that’s how the command hierarchy works. It’s no deeper than that.”

Kylo could feel his face burning. He hated this. He’d never had to seduce anyone in his life. He still couldn’t look at Hux. “What if I told you it was?”

Hux exhaled. “I’d say you wanted something.”

_Shit_. Hux was clever like that, and Kylo would have to be careful. He paused a moment, and was quite proud of his answer. “I always want something from you, don’t I? You run the Order for me.”

“It’s not for you.”

“I notice,” Kylo continued, ignoring Hux’s response. “We both know that I’m not as interested in the expansion initiatives as I should be.” He was able to meet Hux’s gaze again, which was still cold. Hux was radiating suspicion. “But I still want the Order to grow. I’m appreciating more and more that you’re able to run everything while I do my research missions.”

“Your research missions.” Hux turned away. “I told you, you would have found anything substantial about the Emperor’s Contingency plan long ago. Anything more than the creation of the First Order is a myth. Rae Sloane was an admiral, and knew everything about it.”

Sloane had allegedly told everything she knew to Hux, who’d related it to Kylo. It was all uninteresting information about fleet maneuvers, rendezvous, and restructuring in the wake of a massive failure. She’d taken the Contingency Plan and acted on her own initiatives, moving away from a resurrected Empire and making something new with the First Order. _Of course_ that was the version of events that the First Order had documented. Kylo could almost believe that Rae Sloane wasn’t just spreading propaganda to legitimize her own little Empire - it made sense that this would have been the part of the plan that a Grand Admiral would have access to. But it wasn’t the whole plan. 

He and Hux had fought about this many times. “Look, I don’t want to talk about the research missions,” Kylo said in response, his voice rising. He _emphatically_ did not want to talk about the research missions right now. “Just stay. Get back into bed.”

“Is that an order, Supreme Leader?”

“Yes,” Kylo answered shortly, clenching his jaw and reminding himself not to let Hux bait him. _Easy, slowly_. He was terrible at both. To cover his annoyance, he propped himself up to a sitting position, pushing his hair out of his face and pulling the sheet up to cover his lap.

Luckily, Hux couldn’t resist an order. None at all. Kylo had found this one of the strangest things about their relationship. No matter how much Hux disagreed with him, even in the bedroom, even when Hux was insulting Kylo during sex, he would immediately do anything Kylo asked if he made it enough of an order. Despite all appearances to the contrary, Hux was extremely accommodating. Kylo supposed that was the Good Soldier programming that Hux and his underlings were always revising for the training programs. Kylo smirked as Hux huffed and crawled back into bed and under the sheet, his face hidden and his back pointedly to Kylo. Even Hux wasn’t immune to his own brainwashing.

When it came down to it, the elaborate pretense that Kylo had planned to get Hux to go along with his plan was unnecessary. Still, Kylo didn’t want to risk anything, now that he was so close to his unlikely goal. So he laid back down and wrapped an arm around Hux to pull him closer, his back flush against Kylo’s chest, their legs wrapped together. Once again, Hux stiffened.

“What are you doing?”

“I thought you liked this.” Kylo put his hand over Hux’s heart to feel his pulse increase, but he could feel him well enough through the Force - wariness, tenseness, the fact he found this incredibly intimate and enjoyable. He was surprisingly cold and clammy all over, given how recently they had been exerting themselves. Kylo paused, then used the Force to subtly warm him.

“You don’t like it,” Hux replied. He squirmed, but Kylo gripped him tighter, pushing his nose into the nape of Hux’s neck and inhaling. Hux’s hair product smelled terrible when he began to sweat, but Kylo liked the way his body smelled otherwise. He smirked as he felt Hux shiver in his arms, relaxing slightly as Kylo drug his lips across his neck and behind his ear.

“Maybe I want to try something different tonight. I told you, I was thinking about you while I was away.”

“Thinking about me?” It was the wrong thing to say, and Kylo’s annoyance at the misstep burned as Hux wrenched himself free and rolled over to face him. “Are you proposing… some other arrangement between us?”

Hux was so shaken by this idea that it overwhelmed the rest of his emotions. Kylo was confused for a moment, until he realized that Hux thought-

“No, not like… a relationship, a partnership,” Kylo answered hurriedly, attempting dismissal and ridicule and sounding slightly strained to his own ears. His own pulse was slamming now. “Nothing personal. I don’t want that.”

Hux held his gaze, his expression still masked. “Then you want something else. And you’re trying to seduce me to get it. It must be terrible.”

“Seduce you? We just had sex! I don’t have to seduce you, I just thought-” Kylo paused, frustrated, then decided to switch tactics. “Fuck you, Hux. This is what happens when I try to do something nice.”  
  
Hux rolled his eyes and pulled his fingers through his hair again. “You never do anything nice. Or for anyone but yourself. And you still haven’t told me what you want.”

“I’m giving you a promotion!” Kylo all but shouted, propping himself up again. “Grand Marshal, with all the final say over the High Command decisions. This is why I haven’t. You’re infuriating.”

Hux blinked at him, but gave no other reaction, his expression frozen carefully neutral again. “And you thought that after sex was the best time to tell me? Did I earn it on my back, after everything else I’ve done?”

Every part of Kylo wanted to tell him yes, that’s exactly what he’d done, because it would hurt him, and he might get to see Hux refuse the promotion on principle. _Easy_, he reminded himself. He clenched his jaw and forced himself to count to three. He was not prone to deception, care, or not simply taking what he wanted. But Hux absolutely couldn’t know. He might suspect, but he wouldn’t _know_.

“Do you think you earned it on your back?”

“No.”

Kylo rolled onto his own back, shoving his hands behind his head and staring at the ceiling, trying for more nonchalance. “You didn’t. I told you, I’ve been thinking about how much you do for me. The sex is great, but not Grand Marshal great.”

He paused. Hux said nothing. Kylo could sense that Hux did not believe him. He thought fast. Hux had called Kylo selfish earlier, which was true enough. 

He closed his eyes and sighed, trying for exasperation. “Look, I just think it’ll make things easier. For both of us. This way, I can just give you an order and have you do it. If you’re Grand Marshal, immediate action won’t have to go through High Command.”

He heard Hux shift again, and felt a weakening of his suspicion through the Force. He’d believed that. Kylo wanted to be offended, because he wasn’t _that_ lazy, but what was the point?

“You’re serious. You’re promoting me. Just like that.”

“Yeah.”

“You know there’s protocol.”

“I don’t know that. I don’t care. Take care of it.”

“High Command won’t like it.”

“I told you, just take care of it.” Kylo rolled on his side and propped himself up on an elbow, his annoyance genuine. He really didn’t care what the rest of High Command thought. He never had, but it would be irrelevant within the next several days anyway. “Can you do that, or is the promotion pointless?”

Hux was also on his back, his head turned toward Kylo. The low light glittered in his eyes. “Of course I can. We need to plan the transition, though. It can’t happen all at once.”

“_You_ have to plan the transition. That’s your job.”

“Please. I know better. But you will need to show up for certain procedures.”

Hux was much less wary now, his mind working on whatever the procedures were. Kylo smirked. Hux was distracted. Perfect. This wasn’t even the smokescreen that Kylo had planned.

“Make it fast. I want to begin work on Starkiller II.”

Hux’s eyes widened, and he was struck speechless for a moment. “_What_?” he finally managed, incredulous.

“You heard me.”

“I’ve heard you before. You’ve always said no.” Hux sat up, the sheet draped over his lap, his ID tags clinking together as he repositioned himself. He was more agitated now, but not wary or suspicious. Perfect.

“I said no before. Not for any good reason.”

“Oh, _really_?”

“Yeah.” Kylo rolled a shoulder in a shrug. “I liked seeing you angry about it.” This was true. It was also one of the only things he’d ever seen Hux fail at - Starkiller, and the orbital maneuvers above D’Qar just after. Kylo knew the failure ate Hux alive daily, he’d been so broken and unresponsive afterward. Hux had been pushing to begin another weapon for over a year, nearly as long as Kylo had been Supreme Leader. He always came to Kylo with new presentations, with well-reasoned logic and tactics that tied the plans into the First Order expansion, but Kylo knew it was so Hux could prove himself again.

It was the perfect bait. Hux wanted this very badly. And he was so convinced it was right, he wouldn’t think hard about why Kylo was allowing it. 

“Besides, you said yourself the risk was lower if we waited longer to gather resources.”

“We recovered enough to begin under optimum circumstances nearly eight months ago!”

“You told me. Many times. Too many times.”

Hux put his hands in his hair again, coming his fingers through it compulsively in a rare moment of exasperation that he normally wouldn’t show. “Why, Ren? Why now?” He was glaring at Kylo, remembering to be suspicious again.

But Kylo knew he had him. He looked to the side in feigned annoyance. “The expansion isn’t going as fast as I thought.”

“You were blaming me for that, while contributing nothing yourself.”

“So you’ve subtly hinted. I decided to listen. You’re right. The Core worlds are too well-protected for anything but an extended and difficult war. Threatening them with the weapon will make things move faster, right?”

Hux shook his head, staring towards the doorway. “You’re serious. About all of this. You just changed your mind, on a whim.”

He hadn’t. But with no response from Kylo, Hux pivoted on the mattress and stood, walking across the room to the bedroom door, completely naked.

“Where are you going?”

“There’s too much to do,” he muttered, glancing around Kylo’s main suite. “Forget about the promotion protocols. Just give the order to begin Starkiller II, that will be easier. We’ll do the Grand Marshal promotion when we start getting pushback. I’ll need to appoint my replacement for the expansion program. You’ll need a new-” Hux glanced back sharply. “A deputy. Someone who can execute your commands and organize your schedule. I won’t be able to do it-”

“Whatever,” Kylo interrupted, not willing to think about that. He didn’t want to talk to anyone but Hux. And, well. He was about to execute the Contingency Plan. He’d be speaking to the Emperor, and possibly his grandfather soon enough, he didn’t have to worry about some button-pusher asking him about his _schedule_. “Figure it out. Make it happen.”

Hux turned around to face him, inclining his head in a gesture that looked ridiculous when he was naked. “I’ll make the arrangements to send the first inquiries tomorrow. We will be able to make a high-level internal announcement within the week.”

“Tomorrow,” Kylo began, careful to make his voice low, not wanting to sound too interested in what came next. “I found something on Arkanis, and I wanted to make another research trip to the wreckage of the second Death Star tomorrow.”

Hux’s brows drew together. “Fine. I’ll start the Starkiller inquiries without you. But it-”

“Tomorrow,” Kylo continued, louder, interrupting Hux, “I’m going to need help, since there’s not a clear location for what I need to find in the Death Star wreckage. The structure is spread over half the surface of Endor and a large percentage of the forest moon, including all its terminals and data storage. I’m going to need a sizable salvage crew, techs, and engineering experts to maximize data recovery.”

Hux waved this statement away impatiently. “That will take too long to organize for tomorrow. I’ll appoint your deputy tomorrow, Ves or Teregen, and you can give them-”

“I want you to organize the salvage. And I want you to come with me. Tomorrow.”

Hux’s posture stiffened. He was summoning his dignity to decline. Kylo rolled over onto his stomach and propped himself up on his arms, facing him in the doorway and waiting for his delicately-phrased negation.

“Frankly, that is impossible. The wreckage is spread over hundreds of kilometers on Endor, not to mention the undisturbed site on the moon-”

“Undisturbed? What do you mean?”

Hux frowned at the interruption this time. “Salvaging the wreckage on the planet is a whole industry on Endor. Last I heard, they were still shipping ore and tech from certain locations off-planet. Any information you were looking for-”

“You said the site on the moon was undisturbed.” Kylo could feel a touch of premonition, the chill of certainty settle over him, even before Hux spoke.

“Yes, well, the jungles make salvage there difficult, along with the locals. The surface is difficult to land craft on, and I understand there’s some sort of superstitious-”

“But it’s undisturbed. There are still parts of the Death Star there that haven’t been touched in thirty years?”

“Yes,” Hux said testily. “But as I just explained, recovering it is-”

“We’ll be able to do it. We have to go tomorrow.”

“Stop interrupting me,” Hux snapped, and Kylo almost grinned, ducking his head and brushing his hair out of his eyes to cover it. He felt like everything was falling into place. “I know what you’re doing. I can’t put a salvage crew together in a day, no matter what you say. This task is something that any number of people can handle competently, it does not require my personal oversight. And you’ll need to get used to having a new deputy, I’ll be too busy with Starkiller to take calls from your Stormtrooper guard.”

Kylo thinned his lips. “You’re an engineer, though. You could do it.”

“I could do it. In three days, if I wanted. But so could many other people.”

Kylo looked to the side in annoyance. He might have to concede the three days. But he could feel it, a _pull_. This was right, this was exactly what he was meant to do. He just needed to say the right things, get Hux to agree-

He could give an order, and Hux would do it. But he wanted Hux to want this. It would be so much easier that way.

“It has to be you.” He lowered his head slightly, meeting Hux’s gaze intently. “You know what I’m looking for.”

“I… do,” Hux replied slowly. “But the techs and engineers wouldn’t have to see the information you need. They could simply dump it for you.”

“But you’d know right away whether it was worth dumping. You could also salvage the tech for Starkiller, right?”

“No. That tech is thirty years old. I do not need it for Starkiller.”

“The materials then,” Kylo said, losing patience, then remembering to make his voice more plaintive. “Look. I know you aren’t interested in my research, but I know I’m going to find what I’m looking for there. I can feel it.” His voice was rising. This was more true than he intended, and he felt himself flush. He leaned forward, pinning Hux with his gaze. “It’s important to me. You know that. And you’re the only one I trust to help me with it. I trust you to direct the data storage and recovery, and I trust you to keep what I’m looking for intact.”

Hux stared at him a moment, expression held carefully still. “You trust me,” he replied flatly.

It wasn’t a question. Kylo knew what he meant. Kylo could also sense Hux growing more weary. He’d calculated this, though, and he knew how he might make it work. 

“Not with my life,” he amended quickly, looking away, then back. “No. But I trust you with my research. And I trust your skills and professionalism. I don’t trust anyone else.”

This time, Hux looked away, half turning to look at the complete darkness of Kylo’s main suite, resting his hand on the door frame. He was wary again. Kylo could sense him struggling. He couldn’t help letting his eyes skate down. The door framed Hux almost perfectly, one long pale arm stretched up to eye level, his chin tilted just so, the shadows from the low light highlighting his cheekbones, the shadows of his ribs and hip. His tags glinted, and his expression was pensive. Kylo could tell he was unselfconscious, completely oblivious of his nudity and the effect it might have on Kylo.

Hux turned back, and Kylo’s eyes snapped back up to meet Hux’s, cold blue fringed by the dull and nearly imperceptible gold of his eyelashes. For a moment, he was frozen, then he forced his thoughts back to the matter at hand. Kylo knew what his admission of trust would mean to Hux. Kylo’s research was everything to him. It would be like Hux admitting he trusted Kylo with his army. It was an unwise risk, putting a vulnerability in Hux’s hands. Or would be, if Kylo hadn’t carefully calculated this. 

He watched as Hux made his decision, his expression softening. Just a little. Just around his eyes. His mouth set in a hard line to cover it up. His thoughts grew hazy for a moment too - trust was not lightly given, not by the people that Hux knew. It meant something. He exhaled sharply through his nose.

“You don’t want to direct the efforts yourself.”

Kylo relaxed, raising his eyebrows. “Of course not. I don’t direct personnel. You know that.”

“No. That would be _work_. And you would likely execute any deputy I appointed.”

Kylo shrugged. “I haven’t done that in a long time.”

“Not since I stopped sending messengers to you.” Hux turned back to the dark main room, his posture straightening again. Kylo could sense him analyzing, his mind going in many different directions. He was busy, confident.

_Pleased_.

Hux loved a challenge. Hux had also been handed everything he wanted, giftwrapped very nicely. And Hux loved complicated projects like the Death Star salvage.

“Three days,” he said, turning to speak over his shoulder a moment before disappearing into the next room, reappearing with a datapad. “It will take at least that long to request the experts I’ll need for data recovery, do initial scans of the surface to identify the most promising areas…”

“But you’re starting tomorrow.”

“I’m starting now,” Hux snapped, tapping on the datapad as he disappeared into the ‘fresher. “The scanning crews can go planetside immediately and mark off likely sites. I’ll have the scan data sent to the engineers along with the Death Star schematics-”

“We can go with the scan crews tomorrow.”

“We cannot.” Hux reappeared briefly in the doorway, looking put-upon but professional, still completely naked, his hair disordered. “The scanning crews will be airborne, along with surface-level droids. We won’t be going to the ground level for three days.”

“But we’ll go together then,” Kylo insisted. “You’ll go with me, when we go for the first time. As soon as possible.” He felt a surge of _rightness_ pass through him again, like a harmony with his body and mind. Rarely did he feel so at peace. 

“Yes,” Hux said, annoyed and distracted as he disappeared into the ‘fresher again with the datapad. “I’ll go with you when we know there’s something to see.”

Kylo rolled onto his back and propped his hands behind his head again. The lights were still dim, and the room was silent save for the _hiss_ of the ‘fresher kicking on. The bed smelled bad, and Kylo could use a round in the ‘fresher himself.

But that harmony continued, that hum of peace through his body and mind. He pressed against Hux’s emotions, finding only preoccupation, eagerness, confidence.

Perfect. Absolutely perfect.


	3. Chapter 3

There was little time for them to converse, or for Hux to see through Kylo's plan, as Hux set everything in motion. He immediately launched an urgent, top priority operation to explore and recover the remains of the second Death Star. Kylo waited, sending constant queries about when they would be going to the surface. Hux mostly ignored them.

But Kylo had to admire Hux (and Hux’s staff) for their ability to put together such a large-scale operation on such short notice, considering the Endor system was nowhere near active Order space. When they approached the Endor moon in late afternoon, exactly three days after Kylo’s request, the command shuttle was buzzing with extraneous staff ready to deploy and direct the additional personnel and supplies that were traveling in other vessels. There were near four hundred people working on Kylo’s sham now, and he couldn’t have been more pleased.

He and Hux stood at the front of the shuttle with the navigation and flight staff, monitoring the planetary entry through the large viewport as they broke through heavy cloud cover and began approaching the large green-and-brown land mass. Despite the general bustle on board the ship, the command cabin was as taciturn as always.

“Commander Jeret, what have the conditions been on the ground so far?”

“Favorable, General,” the commander answered without glancing up from her console. “Ground level equipment reports consistent mild winds, no storms approaching. Surface temperature is warm and humid, but does not necessitate special equipment. No signs of native development or infrastructure. Wreckage of the second Death Star is abundant in the zone that you and the engineers indicated, initial crews all report the site undisturbed. Site is… coastal, a grassy plain leading into heavy deciduous forest. Some scanning crews report possible past or present evidence of a very primitive native species in the forested area, no confirmed sightings. Ground parties remain undisturbed by surface-level or incoming interference since first sweeps.”

Kylo scowled, leaning in closer to Hux. “I’ve met them. The natives.”

Hux, in full uniform and greatcoat, including his high collar and silly hat, turned his head to face him, his posture perfect in front of the onlooking crew. “Oh?” he murmured, sounding only marginally interested after the threat assessment.

Kylo glanced back out the viewport, watching as the coastline grew larger. At this distance, he could pick out the four large carriers that had already landed, and could spot the largest pieces of Death Star wreckage, one of which jutted from the waves just past the waterline.

”_These little guys saved our lives_,” his father had told him, introducing him to Chirpa, the leader of the settlement.

”_We wouldn’t have won the war without them. They wiped out the Imperial ground patrol by themselves. Took down the AT-ATs and speeders with rope traps. They didn’t see it coming_,” his mother had added.

”_They’re great warriors, Ben_,” Luke had told him, more than once. ”_It’s not technology or size that wins wars. They deserve our respect. Without them, we’d all still be Imperial subjects. Me and your mom would be the Emperor’s prisoners. Probably you, too._”

Luke. _The Emperor’s prisoner_. Darth Sidious would have wanted to train Luke and his mother. _Would_ have trained them, along with his grandfather. It would have been so much different.

He turned back to Hux, who had obviously already forgotten his comment. “Yeah. They’re only a meter tall, look like children’s toys. The only danger from them is getting hugged to death at the knees.”

Hux laughed once, short and sudden, hiding it with a cough, but eyeing Kylo with appreciation as he turned away, not bothering to comment.

Kylo was startled out of his sullenness, the bad mood he couldn't help when he thought of his past. Hux laughed so rarely, and it was always a surprise when he did. He tried to remember the last time he’d made Hux laugh, then realized that this was likely the last time Hux would ever laugh, if all went well.

He frowned, turning away from Hux and dismissing the creeping sensation of dread that tickled in his stomach. That was dangerously close to sentiment, which was ridiculous. He had no special attachment to or opinions of Hux, and the man would be dead in hours. Such thoughts were useless, and Kylo instead pictured himself successful, kneeling in front of Darth Sidious. 

When he pictured Darth Sidious, it was always just as he looked on the holos - stooped, robed, and scarred. He knew how important appearances were, and that Darth Sidious was far from frail, but that it benefited him as a ruler to have others think so. There were many reasons he’d never bothered with rejuvenation treatments, or cosmetic surgery after he'd been attacked by the Jedi. They were some of the same reasons he'd kept a highly-trained personal guard with him at all times, despite not needing it. Snoke had practiced all of these himself, and had practically beaten the necessity of it into Kylo during training.

For all the good it did Kylo now. Not a single being in the galaxy would believe that Kylo Ren wasn’t dangerous. He had only the visible lightsaber scar, nothing like the battle trauma of Snoke or Darth Sidious. And what was the point to keeping a fake personal guard, then? Kylo had no interest in feigning weakness, anyway.

He imagined himself kneeling at the feet of Darth Sidious, the Sith's hand lying gently Kylo’s head, the praise he would hear for his faithfulness, his ingenuity. That he was so much like his grandfather, and would make a fine apprentice. Kylo would be the one who handed him back his Empire. Kylo was the one who had kept it so faithfully, and who had given Darth Sidious his very life back. 

Kylo shook his head slightly, remaining silent and staring out the front viewport. Yes, he decided, still not able to rid himself of his sense of unease. All that seemed too easy, but that’s exactly how it would happen, wouldn’t it? There could be no other outcome, if he successfully resurrected Darth Sidious.

* * *

  
Landing and unloading the crew and equipment was highly organized and regulated, more so than the procedures for deploying armies into battle that Kylo was more familiar with. The scope of the operation on Endor’s moon shouldn’t have surprised Kylo, but still did. There were already several large transports lined up along an expanse of beach, lit by gentle afternoon sunlight. Officers, engineers, and troopers crawled all over the immediate vicinity. In one area, a large group was setting up a command center. In another, crews were hauling in tech to process and materials to scrap and repurpose, the facilities for shipping and the minimal planetside processing quickly taking shape. It had happened in a day. It was what they did, of course, but it was still impressive to see one of Kylo’s whims given such vibrant life so quickly.

Kylo and Hux went immediately to the makeshift command center and were met by a cluster of five officers, led by a captain wearing a light gray uniform and a cap that covered her close-cropped dark hair. All five cast a nervous eye to Kylo and made deference to him as Supreme Leader, but their attention was only for Hux.

“Sir. Efforts are going well. We’ve organized separate crews for scanning, scouting, and salvaging tech and materials. We estimate that we’ve scanned around forty percent of available wreckage, recovered around three percent. Where would you like our efforts focused?”

“Thank you, Captain,” Hux answered crisply, taking a code cylinder from her and scanning it to his own datapad, then paging through the information briefly. “Continue to concentrate your efforts closest to the Command Center, then-”

“Further out, if you please, Captain,” Kylo interrupted, his expression grave and his voice even. He kept his same stance, relaxed and standing just behind Hux, and had the pleasure of watching Hux’s shoulders tense in annoyance. The Captain jumped, and the lieutenants behind her exchanged glances. That was less satisfying - he wanted them to accept his orders at face value and walk away, not look as if he'd threatened their lives.

The captain was struck momentarily silent, but recovered well. “Yes, Supreme Leader. Right away.”

Hux was silent for a few beats, clearly deciding whether to say something diplomatic to try and counter Kylo. Kylo waited, eager to see if he would, but of course Hux continued as if Kylo hadn't spoken.

“When will the salvage operations be underway?”

The Captain nodded, relaxing slightly. “Estimates put us online for processing raw ore in around thirteen hundred hours. As you commanded, we’ll be able to pull duranium, steel, and certain core elements into quite manageable shipments.” She glanced back over her shoulder. “We’ll be here for months. There’s probably enough for a whole fleet.”

“Very well. We have use for it.” Hux’s voice grew more eager at this. “Earmark the shipments for-”

“Divert it to my own personal use,” Kylo interrupted again, taking a step forward to stand alongside Hux, his hands behind his back in a parody of military rest. He knew he shouldn’t push Hux like this, that it was a ridiculous impulse that he needed to control. But he couldn’t help himself, and there were only the five officers to see. “Store it on Issafar, see that it’s routed to a facility there.”

This time, the Captain and Lieutenants did not react, their expressions frozen, and he did not watch Hux. Still, Hux was silent for a few moments, and spoke before the Captain could recover enough to agree.

“All due respect, Supreme Leader, there is no such facility on Issafar.”

Kylo looked at Hux mildly. Hux’s expression was guarded. “Do we not use Issafar as a shipping hub?”

“We do, but-”

“The certainly a suitable facility can be found there, correct?”

“Supreme Leader,” the Captain interjected. “This amount of ore will be-”

Kylo turned to glare at her, and she fell silent. After staring for another long moment, he turned back to Hux.

“Well? Yes, or no?”

“Yes, Supreme Leader,” Hux said, casting his eyes down.

Kylo nodded, satisfied, then turned back to the Captain. “Continue with your report.”

“Yes, sir.”

The captain went on with her status update, but Kylo left her and Hux to it, satisfied by the small glares Hux kept shooting in his direction. It was such an easy thing to get under Hux’s skin, to undermine him in front of a subordinate in the pettiest way possible. Hux, who projected an air of unshakable confidence, was always thrown horribly off-balance by such things, and Kylo had always found it entertaining.

While watching Hux speak to the group of officers, his bowed head covered by his command cap and his sideburns all that was visible of his red hair, he realized he was _staring_, and quickly jerked his head away, glaring into the middle distance in the opposite direction. It would do him no good to focus on Hux now. He should be ignoring him, using him for all the things he did well and nothing more. 

It was not extraordinarily helpful to recall that sex was one of the things that Hux did well. Nor was it useful to remember that Kylo wouldn’t have anyone to talk to once the ritual was finished.

The ritual, and that annoying pull against his consciousness again, that twist in his gut. He shifted uneasily. Since finding what he needed on Arkanis, he’d been looking forward to this moment, able to visualize Darth Sidious and the end of his quest. But beginning this morning, there was something about Hux, and what Kylo was about to do, that was just karking _annoying_. Wrong, in some way that Kylo couldn’t pin down.

It shouldn’t be wrong. His whole life since Luke’s betrayal (Luke again, for the second time today - he shouldn’t be thinking of Luke, Luke was gone forever) had been leading up to this, the resurrection of the Emperor. It was the first thing Kylo had wanted wholly himself, not directed by someone else’s interest. He’d wanted it so badly, and he’d wanted to find the ways and means to make it happen himself.

And he has. It should be exciting, it should feel like victory. It should feel _right_. 

Somehow, today, it did not. 

Perhaps it was because the end had come unexpectedly. He found the way to his goal only three days before, after years of fruitless searching that had brought him no closer. He’d been so wrapped up in the idea of success, reading Hux’s Arkanis profile and the instructions it contained over and over again, that he hadn’t had a chance to let what was about to happen sink in. He needed to meditate, to prepare himself, to picture how things would move forward. 

Allowing himself another glance at Hux, it occurred to Kylo that he’d imagined the end before, had imagined his life alongside the Emperor quite frequently. He’d always pictured himself as Darth Sidious’s apprentice, the Emperor’s Second-in-Command. But when Hux had imagined how the Empire would be run, Hux had been there too, of course. Hux had always been there, ever since Kylo joined the First Order. Hux was the one who made everything happen, even before Kylo had became Supreme Leader. It was just… Hux.

Whatever. Kylo may have imagined differently, but he knew now that Hux had one more real task to perform, and that would be the end of him. 

It took Kylo a moment to realize that Hux was now meeting his stare, along with the Captain and the lieutenants behind her. As Kylo’s gaze shifted from face to face, it became obvious in the strained silence that they were waiting on some kind of answer from Kylo. But Kylo had no interest in whatever they had been discussing, and couldn’t be bothered to scramble to remember. This salvage effort was a farce, and he cared very little for any of it. 

Rather than responding, he inclined his head, then pushed past the group, letting his cape billow behind him and cut an impressive figure as he took long strides past the command center and along the rocky beach. He quickly reached the grassline, the waist-high grass rippling and waving in a gentle breeze. It would have been beautiful, if not for the massive wreckage littering the scenery.

Nearby, chunks of burned-out and deformed durasteel stretched hundreds of meters high, most not recognizable as any type of structure. The metal was gray-black and twisted beyond all recognition. Uniformed bodies scrambled around the bases of the pieces closest to the command center, lending scale to the wreckage that the scenery could not. Past the largest sections nearby, there was so much more stretching out into the field, into the treeline and as far as he could see along the coast. The sizes ranged from larger than several city blocks on Chandrila, casting long shadows in the field, to scatterings of scorched metal barely visible above the waving tops of the grasses, glints of the sun making them more obvious. With all the First Order personnel about, it looked as if the war had happened last week and not over thirty years ago.

He heard grass rustling behind him, and after a few moments Hux appeared at his side, rushing to keep up with him. He was still wearing the greatcoat and cap, which Kylo noted would be a hindrance in the planetside heat. But he knew that Hux was vain, and would want all the authority that his uniform could give him in the unfamiliar setting and strange mission. The cap hid his bright hair and shielded his face from the sun, but the light hitting his dark uniform made his face appear even more starkly pale than usual.

When Hux said nothing, Kylo lengthened his stride to move across the field faster, forcing Hux into a ridiculous little military half-step to keep up with him. Hux had long enough legs to keep up with Kylo’s pace, but of course he didn’t wish to ruin his Good Soldier image where others could see. Kylo also noticed that Hux was beginning to sweat, moisture glinting at his hairline and temples. Kylo smirked. He’d also have grass wrapped around his perfectly shined boots, and detritus stuck to the hem of his greatcoat. Kylo loved forcing Hux out of his pristine little box, no matter the context.

His mind immediately supplied a different context - _fingers in his hair, Hux naked and arched above him, riding him, the slim body and well-defined muscles_ \- and was forced to immediately push it away. All of that was gone now. Kylo shouldn’t have ever wanted it.

They continued to walk in silence, and Kylo slowed his pace, too taken by the monumental pieces of wreckage crawling with First Order crews. The scale of the wreckage was difficult to comprehend. So much of it was _big_, horribly out of place on the surface of the moon. Kylo had seen and done much in his life. He’d been the son of a senator and two galactic heroes. He was the leader of the galaxy, and a Force user who took it upon himself to seek out and extinguish that particular talent in others. He typically took extraordinary events for granted. But he remembered when he’d first joined the Order, and the first time he’d seen one of their _Resurgent_-class Star Destroyers, visible from Kennet City on the surface of Misraf. He’d seen the holos, of course, and he’d been aboard the largest capital ships the Mon Cala manufactured. But he’d had to stop and stare at the Star Destroyer, ominously hovering above the capital city and casting it in its long shadow. It was _enormous_, imposing in a way he hadn’t really believed a ship could be. He’d been far too old to gawk, and he’d hated himself for the show of slack-jawed ignorance, but Star Destroyers were extraordinary, and the novelty had never left him. It was why he’d never rebuilt Snoke’s ridiculous flagship, and had instead resurrected the Super Star Destroyer program. They were enough.

Looking at the ruins of the second Death Star was the same. He’d seen the holos, of course, and heard his parent’s stories. Kylo had seen Starkiller built, which had been so much larger and more powerful, but… more like a planet with the parts of a Death Star under the crust. It was impressive, but not really. These pieces of the Death Star that had fallen planetside, so enormous even in fragments… what had it been like to watch them streak through the atmosphere? Impact the surface? Wonder if you would be killed as you watched?

What had it been like to be aboard? Would Kylo find out soon?

The realization that the Emperor could resurrect his Death Star program brought his thoughts to the task at hand, and he was furious at himself for gawking like one of the Ewoks he had mocked earlier. He glanced around, and realized they’d walked quite far, past where the salvage crews were working. The larger pieces of wreckage were few and far between, most of the debris more sparse, dwelling-size, with moss and vines creeping up the sides. The scattered scrub-like trees were getting taller and closer together. His shoe crunched on a piece of something in the grass.

He stopped suddenly, the feeling of dread returning, searing him just under his skin. He glanced around, trying to pinpoint his unease. Then it hit him: where the fuck were they going? What was he even supposed to be doing among the ruins of the Death Star? The contingency plan had only been to bring the Emperor’s clone to the site of his death. For Kylo, yesterday, that had been enough. It made sense that it would work. But he was here now, and the planet was big, and so was the Death Star. Darth Sidious hadn’t even fucking died here, he’d probably been killed in the explosion outside the orbit of Endor. Did this even count?

Hux walked a few steps past him, then turned when he realized Kylo was no longer following. Kylo, furious at himself and angry that he was still _unsure_, bunched his fists at his sides and glared at Hux. Hux was the one that did things like this for him. Hux made Kylo’s plans, and Hux was the one who turned all of Kylo’s goals into achievable tasks. Kylo had the ideas, and Hux made them happen. It was a weakness, Kylo realized, one he couldn’t fix now.

Hux looked annoyed, and was sweating profusely, but otherwise looked only mildly rumpled. His command cap was blocking the lowering sun from his face, and his uniform looked more like he’d been walking in it and less like he’d been trying to avoid ruining the line of his trousers. The grass was marring his usually neat boots. But otherwise… he looked good. Kylo’s eyes dropped to Hux’s lips, the hint of teeth - _Hux biting him, sinking his teeth into Kylo’s shoulder and squeezing as hard as he could, drawing blood, licking, then sucking, glancing at Kylo through his mussed hair, looking like he hated both Kylo and himself_ -

Hux gestured impatiently, expression pinched, greatcoat stirring slightly in a breeze. “Well? We still have a lot of ground to cover. We need to hurry.”

Kylo frowned. “Hurry where?”

“The site!” Irritation had crept into Hux’s voice, and he closed his eyes, visibly collecting himself. They were both working, and Hux normally wasn’t this impertinent outside of the bedroom. “Supreme Leader,” he added, in the slow and patient way he had that made the title sound like an insult. “The site is much further from the main excavation area. We need to keep walking.”

Kylo blinked, but didn’t respond. They must have discussed during the brief, which was a relief. Still, Kylo wondered what the site _was_. What could possibly be important, this far away from the main work area?

Apparently uninterested in Kylo’s thoughts, Hux turned back around and continued walking, setting an even faster pace. His military stride was gone, and his long legs carried him into the trees, tall grass and greatcoat swirling in his wake. Kylo watched his back for a few seconds, then followed, not wanting to give Hux the satisfaction of admitting he hadn’t listened to the brief.

They continued in silence, covering a lot of ground. Kylo’s sense of unease grew with every step. It was ridiculous. Hux knew where they were going, and Kylo would assess what to do when they got there. It should have been simple. Still, something dark clung to his skin, feeling like it was holding him back. He hated it - normally when this happened, he could just _take care_ of whatever it was. But glancing around the trees as they grew taller and taller, he couldn’t identify where the sensation was coming from, why exactly this seemed like a very bad idea.

_When have you had any other type of idea? When have you ever done the right thing?_ a sneering voice inside his own thoughts asked him. Kylo scowled, and made a gesture in front of his face to actively dismiss the voice. That was the Light, and it was weakness. He was the Supreme Leader now, and he was right about everything.

_You won’t be the Supreme Leader much longer, will you?_ The traitorous voice asked again. No, not after Darth Sidious was resurrected. Or maybe he would keep the title, but it wouldn’t matter. Darth Sidious would be Emperor, of course.

_Supreme Leader is the only thing you’ve ever done right in your life_.

It didn’t matter. He didn’t even _like_ being the Supreme Leader. It was too much work. All of the duties were more to Hux’s taste, and Hux wouldn’t be alive to care anymore.

He hunched his shoulders and banished the negative thoughts. Arguing with himself was a sure sign that he was struggling with the Light. Again. He needed something Dark to balance himself, to silence those voices. His doubts. He needed to do this.

He forced himself to think of what he’d imagined earlier, that he would soon be bowing to Darth Sidious and receiving his praise. But it brought him no comfort now. As he considered the idea again, he realized it was too much like bowing to Snoke.

The silence continued between himself and Hux as they moved from the sparse trees in the field to a thicker forest, the grass disappearing and turning into a carpet of dead branches and low-growing ferns. The tall, thick trunks were choked with vines and led to a dense leaf canopy high above them that hid the sun and sky. As they moved deeper, the cacophony of avians and other species echoed through the trees, growing louder. The air grew thicker and more humid, and even Kylo began to grow uncomfortable in his tunic, cape, and thin pants.

More importantly, he didn’t spot any wreckage. There were occasional low mounds with heaps of vegetation and stunted trees that were probably smaller pieces being consumed by the forest. But Kylo spotted only two of those, and they hadn’t seen any First Order personnel in some time.

“Where are we going?” Kylo asked again, voice firmer this time. 

Hux glanced over his shoulder, smirking, then faced forward again. “The scanning crews found something within the priority search parameters I gave them. I’m sure it’s what you’re looking for.”

Kylo took several large steps to catch up, looking over at him. Something was wrong. Rather than the flushed, sweaty unhappiness from earlier, he looked… good. Calm, smoother somehow. A touch of amusement danced in his features. His steps had become even more rolling and casual, and he was almost _strolling_. Even his posture had relaxed slightly, which Kylo would have believed impossible.

His tone of voice and amused smirk seemed to indicate his irritation from earlier, and what should have been annoyance at Kylo not listening to the brief, had vanished. He seemed genuinely pleased about wherever it was they were going. But-

This was wrong. It was awful, and some part of Kylo was raging now, the uneasiness growing into barely-caged panic.

He stopped, putting a hand to Hux’s arm to stop him as well.

“I’m not sure this is right. I need to meditate, to determine where the Force will guide me.” He faltered, then gestured around to the forest, growing more confident. “The crash site is enormous, and I need to be certain before we waste any more time.”

Hux’s expression twisted into something ugly, and his tone became poisonous. “You don’t want to waste time? And yet you want to meditate?” Hux made a disgusted noise. “You couldn’t find focus through meditation with the firing lens from Starkiller.”

The hostility was uncharacteristic. Hux never spoke to him like that. Both his criticism and temper were always handled more diplomatically, and always when they weren’t actually working. Kylo glanced around again, a reflex borne from being constantly surrounded by others, but his worries for Hux vanished when what he had said finally registered.

Hux was right, he’d never been able to clear his mind and focus on his goals through meditation. He’d only ever been able to stoke his power in the Dark, meditate on his anger and disappointment to make himself more powerful. Snoke had always mocked him for the weakness, and Luke-

He cut the thought off. Not Luke again, not today. He was too close, and Kylo didn’t want to think about him, especially-

Something else occurred to him, making the unease and caged animal panic rise to the front of his mind. His blood ran cold.

_Hux didn’t know that about him_. Couldn’t. Kylo would never tell him a weakness like that. Nor would Snoke. Snoke had delighted in making the Force seem more mysterious and formidable than it was, and wouldn't have voiced a weakness in front of a layperson. And he’d had even less respect for Hux than Kylo.

Kylo wanted to ask Hux how he knew. He opened his mouth, but couldn’t get the question out. Part of him didn’t want to know. It was impossible, and any answer would-

After Kylo opened and closed his mouth several times, Hux only narrowed his eyes below the shadowed brim of his cap, his ugly expression gone in a moment, hidden behind his usual calm demeanor. Without saying anything else, Hux pulled away from Kylo's grip and began walking again. 

Kylo followed, he could do nothing else. He suddenly realized he didn’t even have a datapad on him to navigate back to the base camp. A moment later, he realized that Hux wasn’t using a datapad to navigate either, and couldn’t be keeping a bearing with the sun, which was no longer visible underneath the forest canopy. 

Kylo was the one sweating now, panicked, all but shouting to himself that he had no right to be afraid while alone in the woods with Hux. He was the most dangerous being here. Perhaps the hand of Darth Sidious was in this, and the Force really was guiding them. The thought brought no comfort.

After twenty more minutes of stumbling through the forest, Kylo could no longer stand the silence. Whatever was about to happen would happen, good or bad, and he decided to try and prepare himself. Conversation would help, and if Hux was able to answer, the certainty would calm him.

“How much further to the site?”

Hux didn’t respond, didn’t turn back or acknowledge Kylo at all. 

“General! How much farther to the site?” Kylo repeated, louder, though he was certain that Hux had heard him the first time. Again, Hux didn’t respond, slow, or make any sign that he’d heard at all.

It was worse than the silence. Kylo tried again.

“What did you tell the scanners to look for? What could they have possibly found so far away that would be this important?”

Again, the one-sided silence made Kylo aware that he was the only one panicking, and that he was likely overreacting. Hux was fine. Hux was cheerfully walking himself to his death.

Kylo had never received visions through the Force before, those glimpses of the future that his grandfather and the Emperor had been rumored to wield. It was not one of Kylo’s gifts. But he sensed that something like it was happening now, that the Force was telling him that something bad would happen to Hux and himself if they continued. 

Of course something bad was about to happen to Hux. Presumably, Kylo would cause it. But resurrecting Darth Sidious could only be good. Certainly the Force had told him that before. He’d felt it.

Hadn’t he?

“General… _Hux_,” he tried, his voice not as strong as he’d hoped. “There's no paths through this forest. No signs that the scanning crews have been here. There’s not even any wreckage! What are we doing this far away from everything?”

Nothing. Kylo tripped, cursing as his foot found a hole below the twigs and leaf litter. Hux had, of course, avoided the hole. Hux was unfazed by the small tangles, the branches, the limbs that were tripping up Kylo. Hux was climbing over everything without comment, without pause, with his greatcoat trailing behind him as if he was on the command deck of the _Finalizer_. He kept his back to Kylo, expression hidden along with everything else. The brim of his command cap met his collar, obscuring every inch of his skin from behind. He looked like a walking uniform.

“Hux, _answer me_, what are we doing out here?”

At that, Hux did turn and respond, not pausing his stride, half his face visible over his shoulder. “I know exactly where we’re going. And I know what I have to do, but I don’t have the strength to do it. You need to help me.”

Hux smiled, different than his usual smirks, small and secretive, before turning back to hide himself from Kylo.

There could not have been a more chilling response. Kylo’s panic broke free, overcoming the rest of his thoughts.

It was what he’d said to his father before killing him. Kylo remembered. Hux didn’t know that, _couldn’t_ know. Force save him, this was awful, and he needed to get away, every part of him was screaming to run and leave Hux in the woods to whatever was about to happen, he needed to _flee_-

Kylo tripped again, falling on his hands and knees. He tried to stay down, tried to let Hux move farther ahead so he could escape, follow their path through the undergrowth in what remained of the fading daylight filtering through the leaves. He found he couldn’t. Awfully, terribly, he found his body was standing up and following Hux, and he couldn’t stop it, couldn’t turn around and run, and his thoughts were a blind chant of _get away get away run run run_-

There were several more moments of absolute terror before Hux stopped himself, Kylo’s steps halting along with his. Hux stooped in front of one of the lumps of vines and vegetation that Kylo had noticed earlier, heaps of plant detritus that stood out in the otherwise flat area. They could only be pieces of the Death Star, buried under thirty years of weeds and grasses as the planet attempted to take the wreckage back into itself.

There were no trees near this hill, an eerie ring of clearing perfectly formed around the hump of limbs, yellow stalks, and tangled flowering vines. With the sky visible again, Kylo could see that it was much later than he’d thought, the lowering sun turning the sky a hazy pink.

Hux began tearing through the vines in front of him, heedless of his uniform, gloves, and coat. After a few minutes of uprooting larger plants and tossing away handfuls of grasses, he cursed, pausing to remove his cap and coat, tossing them aside carelessly to the jungle floor. Kylo eyed them, part of him screaming that Hux would never do that, would never treat his uniform so carelessly. Hux resumed pulling at the vines and grasses, throwing them away in great handfuls of soggy, rotting plant matter.

It wasn’t like Hux at all. He was ruining his uniform, discarding the greatcoat with his rank in the woods, which Kylo knew concealed Hux's slightness and was a mark of vanity, and it just… it wasn’t _Hux_, could not be any more unlike him. Then, Kylo felt a slight shiver, and found he could move again. There was a moment of shock, followed by the realization that his concern for Hux had somehow freed him. But… it had worked, and anything that could get them out of the woods and away from this planet was acceptable. He would use any impulse, any power he could leverage through the Force to undo this mission and never come to this place again.

“Hux. It’s getting late. We need to return to the base before dark.”

No response. More handfuls of vegetation tossed aside, wetter now, with thick clumps of soil clinging to the roots. The sleeves of Hux’s uniform were growing damp and dirty, flecked to the elbow with brown plant matter. Kylo could smell the rot from where he was standing. The rank stripes on Hux’s tunic were stained.

“Hux, _stop_, please.” It came out more plaintive than Kylo would have liked, but in the moment, he wanted it to work, needed it to speak to something in Hux.

It didn’t make him pause. But he did reply, finally. “There’s no going back, Kylo Ren.”

Before Kylo could process the odd statement, Hux stood, tearing away the last of the grasses and vines with a tremendous ripping noise and tossing the large strip of sod to his feet. With a look of distaste, he brushed the dirt and leaves from his gloves and sleeves.

Kylo could now see that the piece of wreckage below the plants was an escape vessel, one that appeared intact, judging by the size of the rest of the mound. Imperial era, of course, larger than a standard escape pod. The hatch was visible under what Hux had pulled away, and it showed no signs of impact damage or scorching from reentry. The door appeared to be oriented upright, indicating that the landing had likely been smooth.

As if the vessel had landed only last week, Hux stepped forward, posture straight and military again. He pulled off his ruined gloves and palmed the release controls in the frame. Kylo had a moment of incredulity - what did Hux think would happen? - before, incredibly, the hatch swung open in a pneumatic hiss.

The vessel shouldn’t have power, shouldn’t still be live. Not after thirty years. Still, the hatch opened, and Hux walked into the dark beyond as if it belonged to him. Kylo hesitated a moment, then followed Hux, unsure if he was doing so by his own will. He was morbidly fascinated, though every part of him was screaming that this was a trap, that they would both die here. His hand hovered over the hilt of his lightsaber, but he knew it would do him no good.

Inside, his suspicions were confirmed. The main chamber was a meditation pod, similar to the one that belonged to Darth Vader. Kylo had studied everything he could find about Darth Vader's meditation chamber, looking for the secrets of his grandfather’s power, how he’d worked, how he’d lived. Kylo had wanted one exactly like this, but had been too embarrassed to ask Hux, who would know what it was immediately and why Kylo desired it. This craft was larger, more elegant inside than the one belonging to Darth Vader, and designed to be more like a ship than an escape pod.

As Kylo stepped further inside, it was as unbearable as he could have imagined. The air, undisturbed for thirty years, was hot and close and stale, and smelled of the sweet, lingering stench of rotting flesh. Kylo’s mind took in that fact, then rejected it, not wanting to confront the reason behind it.

Kylo started as dim blue light illuminated the interior of the pod, flickering weakly on the last of whatever power the vessel still contained. The light came from only a few of the main fixtures, filtering through decades of grime that coated the inside of the pod, along with a few thin, dried-out vines that had made their way inside. As Kylo’s eyes adjusted, he saw Hux’s back disappear into the doorway leading to the forward section of the ship, presumably into a small cockpit. Kylo hesitated, then followed, at a loss for what else to do.

He stopped behind Hux, just inside the cockpit, and froze at what he saw over Hux’s shoulder. Perched at the pilot’s seat, slouched at the controls below a viewport masked by dark plant matter, laid mummified remains of what could only be Sheev Palpatine, Emperor of the galaxy and the Sith Lord Darth Sidious. The body was unmistakable - the robe, the walking stick, the short stature. The fact that it was _here_, inside a custom meditation craft.

It was impossible. All of it was, but this - someone as powerful as Darth Sidious would have become One with the Force when he died, his body couldn’t be here, he wouldn’t just-

Kylo cried out in horror as Hux took a step forward and pushed the corpse upright into the pilot’s seat and spun it around to face them. Kylo put out a hand to stop him, but could only watch as Hux bent down, rummaging in the dessicated robes. It was a horrible desecration. Kylo cared little for physical remains once the life had fused with the Force, but in this case, his stomach clenched at the idea of Hux touching _that_, of disturbing the body of Sheev Palpatine. Kylo wanted to stop him, should have grabbed Hux with the Force or shouted, _anything_. But he was once again frozen, powerless to intervene as Hux continued down a path Kylo knew was wrong. He moaned weakly, but Hux took no notice of him.

Scowling, Hux reached back into the robe and withdrew two items, one in each hand. Even in the low, nearly nonexistent light of the cockpit, Kylo recognized both objects as lightsaber hilts. Both were smooth and elegant, the barely-there light in the pod reflecting off the curved surfaces of the grips. They were the most beautiful Kylo had ever seen. Made by a true master, using skills that have since been lost to time. Purposely. By the corpse in front of him.

Hux cocked his head, looking down at the hilts in his hand, then activated them both, holding the plasma blades aloft and studying them. Kylo had to squint and flinch away as the cockpit was suddenly washed in the bright red light. The blades were both smooth and nearly silent, completely unlike Kylo’s own weapon.

Hux’s neutral, nearly unconcerned expression was limned in red by the blades, clearly visible in the steady light from the weapons. He was studying them clinically, obviously unsurprised by the find, but appearing interested only in the fact that they functioned. Of course they would. Time alone would not kill a lightsaber, nor the kyber crystal that powered it.

The sight of Hux casually wielding Darth Sidious’s two lightsabers brought the gibbering, blind terror back to Kylo. It was wrong, it was so wrong, Hux shouldn’t have been doing it at all, should have been acting this way, and Kylo needed to run, needed to get himself away-

As Kylo managed to take a step backward through the door into the main meditation chamber, Hux began chuckling low, breaking the silence in the pod. It was so much different than his laugh earlier - low, sinister, not really amused. Not even really Hux’s voice.

_Force help him, he needed to do something-_

“Hux,” he tried, satisfied when his voice sounded as firm and angry as he’d hoped. He continued, trying for more arrogance. “Those are mine. You wouldn’t be able to fight your way out of a paper bag with them.”

Hux turned to regard him, looking up from the twin blades, and… his eyes were yellow, and glowing. Kylo stared into them, hoping to see something else, and couldn’t. All coherent thought immediately fled his mind.

“Oh? These are mine, Kylo Ren. I think we both know that.”

Hux’s reply was barely Hux’s voice. Low, polished, confident. His accent was different, more Core than Hux could ever dream of. As he turned to approach Kylo, blades still extended at his sides, his steps were the same slow, unhurried gait he’d used in the forest, nothing military about it.

The disparity between Hux’s body and Hux’s voice and action broke something inside Kylo. He began moaning in panic, still frozen in place, unable to do anything but be _frightened_ like a child in the dark. It was far from the proud, self-assured Supreme Leader he saw himself as, and a wave of shame washed through him.

He was arrogant, and he was wrong.

Kylo could do nothing as he watched the thing in front of him pass the lightsaber hilts to one hand and lower them to his side, blades still ignited, hilts squeezed together. Kylo could feel the heat of them at his hip and thigh as the figure drew closer, raising his empty, bare hand to the side of Kylo’s head, laying one icy fingertip against his temple, staring into his face with a mild, yellow-eyed expression that looked nothing like Hux.

At the touch of the cold fingertip, Kylo felt an overwhelming sense of being _pulled_ through every part of him, body and mind, and knew nothing after that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Palpatine does have two lightsabers in canon, which is a fact you can pry out of my cold, dead hands <s>just like Palpatine would</s>.
> 
> Also, I need you to know that I am still not over Hux two-lightsabers up there. Stef is amazing. ;_;


	4. Chapter 4

When Kylo awoke, it took a moment to remember where he was. The lights were still low, blue and flickering in their filthy fixtures, illuminating the rounded dome that Kylo eventually recognized as the top of a meditation chamber. And he thought, for one foolish moment, that he was having a vision, that it was his grandfather’s meditation chamber, that he was finally commuting with the dead as Luke - _fucking Luke again_ \- promised he could, and it was possible-

The illusion was shattered by a low chuckling that filled the chamber, bringing Kylo back to what had happened. He remembered. He put his hands over his face in an attempt to compose himself. The laughter was Darth Sidious, of course. None other than Sheev Palpatine. He’d heard it, had visions of it, and it was unmistakable.

Somehow, the laughter was also still Hux. Inside the laughter, Kylo could recognize Hux’s voice, though only barely. Darth Sidious had taken control of Hux’s body rather than consuming it. Kylo had not been prepared for that, had no idea it was even possible.

Whatever had happened to Hux, that last pull on his powers had drained Kylo considerably. He was laying on his back on the floor, arms and legs spread around him. Holding in a groan, he winced as he rolled onto his stomach, propping himself up on his elbows to see the rest of the chamber.

The hatch to the ship was open, letting in a small amount of light through the thick growth of vines that still obscured parts of the doorway. The sun had set, though there was still a bright purplish glow outside that mixed with the blue emergency lights in the chamber. Dry, dead vines streaked the walls along with decades of dirt.

There was enough light to see Hux, who was standing to the side of the open hatch, partially obscured by shadows and a black hooded robe that did not belong to him. The hood was deep, obscuring most of his face, though Kylo would recognize those lips, cheekbones, and freckles anywhere. His posture was relaxed, his arms crossed in front of him, hands hidden inside the robe’s loose sleeves. The fabric of the robe was thick, and meant to reflect a minimal amount of light. It was also too short - he could see Hux’s high uniform boots below the hem, along with a pair of loose-fitting gray pants in a style that he’d never seen Hux wear. He was wearing a belt with his standard-issue pistol on his right and the dual lightsabers of Darth Sidious on his left. The silver and gold inlays on the lightsaber hilts were undiminished by the low light and their decades next to a corpse. They were beautiful weapons, and powerful. Even feeling as weak and disoriented as he did, Kylo could feel the power in them.

Kylo’s eyes tracked Hux’s boots as he took half a step forward, and he started as he looked up into the hood and realized that yellow eyes were visible, _glowing_ from the darkness, distinctive and alien while the rest of his familiar face was not quite visible. 

And yet, even in the wrong clothes and with so much about him changed, he was still Hux. He wore Hux’s boots. He wore Hux’s blaster, as if it would ever be needed. Kylo recognized Hux’s hands, his fingers slipping from the sleeves and pushing back the hood to reveal Hux’s face, his nose and eyebrows and lashes. His hair was still the same distinctive red color, but it was now swept straight back from his face in an antiquated style that seemed to age him ten years. He smiled when he met Kylo’s gaze, but it was once again not Hux’s smirk. It was the small, secretive smile of politics that Kylo had hated so much as a child.

“I sense that you are disturbed, young Skywalker.”

Kylo dropped his eyes for a moment. Again, Hux’s voice, but without his cadence or accent. Oily, ingratiating. He schooled his expression, then met his gaze again. “I’m no Skywalker.”

The body that was both Hux and not gave a small tip of the head and came closer, steps loose and light, the robe swaying around his knees. “Of course you aren’t. You chose to distance yourself your legacy and associate with your smuggler father’s past.”

“No,” Kylo responded vehemently, before he could remind himself to be deferential. “I am not the same person born into that family. I discarded my past, and I am Kylo Ren.”

“I see.” His expression froze, and he paused a meter away from where Kylo still lay splayed on the floor. Kylo tried to stand, but he was still dizzy from whatever had happened to him, so instead he pushed himself up into a sitting position, legs splayed in front, leaning back on his arms. 

The hands that belonged to Hux went back into the sleeves of the robe, and he looked down his nose at Kylo. “Tell me, Kylo Ren, what is troubling you?”

The _Kylo Ren_ was said in exactly the same derisive tone that Snoke had used. Kylo swallowed, suddenly remembering himself and ignoring the pain in his head and muscles to scramble into the proper kneeling position, bowing his head.

“It is nothing, my master.” The words felt like ash in his mouth. He hadn’t wanted another master. He pushed the feeling down, and told himself not to use the title again. “Shock, to finally see you alive again.”

A beat of silence, during which Kylo dared not look up, before the body in front of him responded. “A shock. Were you expecting something else, young Kylo Ren?”

“No, your-” Kylo faltered, the forms of address that had been drilled into him as a child failing him. Of course they hadn’t taught him what to call an Emperor. “Your Excellency. I have been seeking the method to revive you for years. It was carefully hidden, as was your design. The information I recovered was incomplete, and I was unsure what form you would take.”

“And you were very clever.” Icy fingers pushed under his chin, and Kylo allowed his head to be tilted up, steeling himself to look into the thing’s face and not react. “But I wish for honesty, and I sense you are hiding something from me. It is not my presence that troubles you.” He tilted his head to the side, smirked again. “Perhaps it is my appearance?”

“Yes, your Excellency,” Kylo responded, relieved by the invitation for honesty, the chance to unburden himself. “I expected you to look like… yourself. I believed the required sacrifice to be just that. I expected his death to be the catalyst that would bring you back to your own body.”

The thing frowned. “And why would I require a clone, if not to use the body as a vessel?”

How the fuck was Kylo supposed to know? He continued to meet the thing’s stare, allowing the cold fingers to remain under his chin, and willed his expression to stay blank. “As I said, what I recovered of your plan was incomplete. And knowledge of the resurrection process has not been granted to me in my studies.”

“Of course.” The fingers were suddenly gone, but the yellow eyes continued to bore into him for several long seconds. Kylo dared not look away. “What was the name of this clone, in his other life?”

At that, Kylo did look down, unable to stop himself, bowing his head and turning the involuntary jerk of his head into deference. “General Armitage Hux. One of my servants in the First Order.”

“A servant.” The sibilant was nearly hissed, and the response had an accusation that made Kylo glance back up, face hot. Hux’s face was smiling again, his hands back in the sleeves.

“My appearance is immaterial. But Armitage Hux was a clone of myself, one of the final, perfect children from Kamino. I once looked like this, in my youth. I can change my appearance at will, but… there are advantages to appearing young. I plan on keeping my body as it is.”

The man examined his hands, Hux’s perfect pale hands, the fingers of which had been so dexterous, before tucking them once again back into his sleeves. Kylo followed the movement with his eyes, pausing for a single moment before looking back up to Hux’s face, into the uncanny yellow eyes that were not Hux’s, above the lips that were. Kylo clenched his jaw, refusing to think about Hux’s lips in any context, let alone how talented they were. 

All of this would have been easier were he not so physically attracted to Darth Sidious. Unfortunate. Kylo shifted and looked away again.

“Is my appearance really so important to you, Kylo Ren? You have won. I stand here before you, just as you always wanted.”

“No, your Excellency.” Perhaps that wasn’t right. Kylo shook his head. “I don’t care what you do with Hux’s - with the General’s body. I am not as disturbed as you sense. Merely pleased, and surprised.” It was a lie, one he hoped was well-intentioned enough not to be sensed. He broke eye contact again to bend low over his knee, low enough that his physical weakness made him dizzy once again. He clenched his eyes shut, willing his vertigo away. “I am pleased to meet you. My new… master.” Kylo again struggled with the title, though it was true enough, and rushed on. “I am eager to learn from you, you have much to teach me.”

The thing with Hux’s face was silent long enough that Kylo looked up again.

“You repeat yourself. I do not believe the turbulence I feel in you is surprise. I sense that you had…” a frown again - “a _connection_ to my vessel. One that might be a problem.”

“I have no connections,” Kylo spat, bowing his head again, embarrassed that Darth Sidious could sense any of that shit at all. It wasn’t important. “I’ve eliminated them from my life. The General was a convenient servant, nothing more. He ran the Order for me, the-” he glanced back up, realizing this was his chance to make a good impression. “The First Order. It’s the continuation of your work. We currently have political control over many of the former Imperial systems, in addition to new systems in the Unknown Regions and Wild Space. We defeated the New Republic, the former Rebellion government, by destroying their central star system. We have a solid base of operations in the Outer Rim, and have been slowly expanding into the Mid-Rim and Core worlds since the Republic’s defeat. We have a technologically advanced fleet with unsurpassed ships and pilots, and a powerful army with advanced weapons stationed throughout the galaxy that are ready for action at a moment’s notice. I’m their leader, the Supreme Leader of the First Order, and used my position to find your contingency plan. The General merely carried out my wishes as I did my research. That’s all.”

The- Palpatine, the Emperor, Darth Sidious, said nothing to all of this, and Kylo narrowed his eyes, unsure how to interpret the silence. There wasn’t anything better he could think to offer Sheev Palpatine than his reclaimed Empire, expanded and ready for his keeping. And, as he considered it, the thought of Palpatine stepping back in, assuming responsibility for the Order and taking everything he’d worked for away from him, made his temper rise. But he quickly calmed himself - that was the _point_, after all, kneeling in front of him and giving him the best of everything. Having a Master again. This time, it would work. Darth Sidious was truly wise. And Kylo wouldn’t be able to kill him, anyway. Probably.

After a moment of searching Kylo’s expression, Darth Sidious laid one of his bare hands on top of Kylo’s head - on top, and not in his hair, as Hux sometimes did. It was what Kylo had imagined as his reward, but in the moment, it was hollow and unsatisfying. Kylo could feel the chill of his hand on his scalp, and suppressed a shiver.

“Good. You’ve been a faithful servant, Kylo Ren. Truly, a descendant of Darth Vader. I am pleased to hear everything is in order. And I believe a servant such as you will do well in your new role. Well indeed.” 

Relief flooded Kylo, along with self-loathing, hating that he was still so dependent on praise, even after everything he’d been through and all that he’d done. He hated himself as he felt his expression open, like a blossom toward sunlight. He hated himself as he stood eagerly, dizziness impairing his vision and muscles still singing with ache, to do his master’s fucking bidding. Again.

“I am prepared, my Master. I am eager to step into my place in your new Empire.” He turned toward the door, gesturing. “All is in order. We can leave the planet immediately, and I will show you the extent of our current control.”

Darth Sidious gave him another unfathomable look, and made no motion toward the dark hatch. “Haste is unnecessary. My resurrection is not yet complete. We must remain in my meditation chamber until sunrise, when the veil between the living and physical Force is thinnest.” He offered his small, secretive smile and stepped forward, closer to Kylo. “I need to perform a sacrifice at that time to transition my full power back to the physical world. And I will require your help, Kylo Ren.”

Kylo frowned, hesitating. “I thought Armitage Hux was the necessary sacrifice?”

Darth Sidious’s smile broadened. It looked more like Hux’s smile that way, and Kylo was struck suddenly by the memory of the afternoon’s shuttle ride, and the last time he thought he’d see Hux smile. He tightened his fists at his sides, hit by a wave of repulsion that he struggled to keep from his face.

“Armitage Hux was only ever a vessel, and not a proper sacrifice to the Force. I am currently using the largest part of my power to remain connected to this body. I require a sacrifice with a powerful affinity to the Force. The disturbance of their death, when the veil is thinnest, will open the way to the physical world and facilitate my full transition.”

Kylo clenched his jaw. He didn’t particularly care for death magic and sacrifice rituals. Embracing the consequences, both desired and not, of death in the Force was different than just cutting down someone with his saber. Still, he had been prepared to do it with Hux, to bring back Darth Sidious.

Except he hadn’t. He hadn’t really thought about it as a sacrifice ritual, not until Darth Sidious called for a different one.

“We will see it done,” Kylo replied after a short hesitation, and even he could hear the pause in his voice. Fury washed through him. He reminded himself that he’d _wanted_ this, and wanted it very badly. Things would be different now, and he believed that. He could do this. Darth Sidious wouldn’t be like the others. They would be partners, as Darth Sidious had been with Vader.

“I will see it done, my master," he said again, unable to help the deference, the immediate slide back to subservience. "Whatever is needed. Teach me the ways of the ritual.” As Kylo gave his reply, his eyes widened in realization - he had _exactly_ what his new master required. He clamped his mouth shut to stop himself from speaking out of turn.

Darth Sidious smiled again. “I can sense your excitement. You have an idea?”

“Yes, I-” Kylo paused, bowing his head to hide his eagerness. “I continued your work, I studied as much about how yourself and Darth Vader practiced the Force as I could. I followed in your footsteps. I continued to eliminate all those who were Force sensitive.” Kylo forced himself to speak slowly and carefully, willing the excitement from his voice. But this would be so _perfect_, it had to be the Will of the Force. “I was… diligent. But there is one left. I am sure-”

He stopped himself. It was Rey he thought of, the scavenger girl would be the perfect sacrifice for Darth Sidious. But as he spoke, he realized Hux had been the only person who knew her location. Hux had made very sure of that - all the data and related progress reports had been behind the most restricted security in their systems. Kylo hadn’t seen the data in a long time, and it had been ages since he’d asked about it.

“I know the perfect person for the sacrifice,” he continued, still confident, deciding it didn’t matter. “Very powerful, but untrained. She will be easy to capture. I established a connection in the Force with her. I will find her and bring her here, to your place of power, and complete the ritual.”

Darth Sidious frowned, and his gaze moved beyond Kylo, going distant. He was silent for several moments, and Kylo waited patiently for his response. 

“Yes, Kylo Ren. You are correct. I sense another, very strong in the Force.” His hand shifted and unexpectedly gripped Kylo’s shoulder, squeezing hard, almost too hard. His yellow gaze returned to Kylo’s face, sharpening to something pleased, almost predatory. “She will do very well. She will suit my purposes exactly.”

Relief washed through Kylo, followed again by the pleasant rush that praise had always given him. Not only was this a great gift to Darth Sidious, Kylo himself had been looking for a reason to go after Rey for a long time. Hux had always stopped him, reminding him unkindly of what had happened on Crait. Hux had said he would take care of it, arrange things in their favor, and inform Kylo when the time was right to strike.

Of course he never had. Hux hadn’t ever understood how important that defeat was to Kylo. But perhaps that, too, had been the Will of the Force. Kylo would do it now, and it was the single most important thing that could be done for Darth Sidious. And Kylo was the only one who could do it.

Rey could be anywhere in the galaxy, it was true and bringing her back before sunrise on the Forest Moon should be impossible. But if the Force was truly behind the night’s events, she would be nearby, and Kylo could do it. 

The detail about their connection in the Force was a lie, and a difficult one to cover in the moment. Kylo had never been able to re-activate his Force bond with Rey, and he was currently too fatigued to even try. But he was confident this would work, somehow, and decided that was irrelevant.

Kylo stood straighter, more proud, and pitched his voice low and confident. “Of course, my master. I could sense it. I will see it done myself, immediately.”

Darth Sidious’s gaze went distant again, but Kylo was eager to begin. He turned to go, but glanced back for a moment to take in Darth Sidious, standing almost inhumanly still, form hidden behind the loose robe, familiar face barely visible in the flickering blue emergency lights. Kylo couldn’t help his stare. It was still difficult to believe that the man standing in front of him was not Hux. And also… not difficult to believe, if he wasn’t looking at him. Darth Sidious was very powerful in the Force, and dangerous. Kylo could feel that more distinctly than he could see Hux’s body in the dim room. The Dark seeped off of him like a poison and washed unpleasantly over Kylo’s awareness. It was a deep disturbance, rippling in intervals as if Palpatine was flexing his presence. Sometimes it flickered out entirely, and Kylo knew it was because he was attempting to mask himself in the Force. He badly needed to.

But as Kylo tore his eyes away from Hux and turned to go, Darth Sidious stepped forward and gripped his shoulder tightly again, squeezing bone and tendon and making Kylo clench his jaw.

“No,” Sidious replied, his gaze focusing back on Kylo, his voice very kind. “It won’t be necessary for you to leave. I don’t wish to see her in my incomplete form, before I truly come into my power.”

Kylo flinched, both from the unexpected pain in his shoulder (had Hux’s grip been so strong?) and from the negation, which didn’t make sense. He groped for meaning, and as he spoke the first thing that came to him, he realized it was wrong.

“Incomplete form? You said you’d still look like Hux.”

Darth Sidious withdrew his hand and scowled at Kylo, obviously disappointed, as all his masters had been before. “I _dislike_ repeating myself," he spat, the sibilants hissed again. "My appearance is not the point, Kylo Ren. My power is.”

Kylo bowed his head, the hairs on the back of his neck standing up, bracing himself for a reprimand like Snoke’s, shame washing through him and sitting heavily in his stomach. Only ten minutes into his new apprenticeship, and he’d already failed. “I do not understand, my master. How are you to return to your full power without sacrificing the girl?”

“It is true, you do not understand. The girl is not the sacrifice.”

Kylo glanced up, both apprehension and hope crawling over his skin. There was something wrong, something that Kylo didn’t understand, but perhaps he could make it better. “Is it Armitage Hux after all? His… soul?”

Darth Sidious glanced away, growing more visibly impatient and angry. His painful grip on Kylo’s shoulder disappeared as his hands slipped back into his sleeves “No. That insignificant little officer has already played his part. He did have great power in the Force, but he did not know of it. It was purposely hidden from him. No.” Darth Sidious turned back to him, expression still tight with impatience, voice steady. “The sacrifice will be you, Kylo Ren.”

Kylo blinked. He had certainly misheard. He couldn’t mean-

“No, you understand correctly,” Darth Sidious continued, expression smoothing back to blank indifference, painfully familiar on Hux’s face. “I have seen you, Kylo Ren. I have watched over you for your entire life. You are the product of your family's legacy, and your own power. I see my own hand in you, my own influence in your family. You are mine, in that way." 

Kylo's stomach clenched at hearing Darth Sidious possess him in such a way, using Hux's mouth. He glanced down briefly, collecting himself, then back up. Darth Sidious smiled the small smile again, continuing in the same voice. "But I have also seen you turn on your two previous masters. I have seen you switch sides during a great conflict, and I know you have only ever been a fickle student who refuses to learn anything too challenging. You have succeeded at little that wasn’t simply handed to you by the Will of the Force. I have seen you meditating before battle, beseeching advice from myself and Darth Vader, seeking counsel from the dead before artlessly taking more lives, blind to the contradiction in your actions. You see yourself as powerful, and yet you enjoy interrogation and torturing prisoners who are below your notice, even in your role as Supreme Leader.”

Kylo opened his mouth, then closed it. He’d never been spoken to like this in his life, not even by Snoke. Darth Sidious had… _seen_, had heard Kylo when he meditated. Kylo had thought his pleas had gone open and unanswered. And perhaps they had. Darth Sidious knew all of his insecurities, things Kylo didn’t allow himself to think about and dismissed as unimportant. Darth Sidious saw them, knew them, and held them against Kylo. He had laid Kylo bare, and there was nothing Kylo could say in his defense. It was humiliating, to be known and judged so inadequate. 

“I’m… good at interrogation. The best in the Order,” he defended weakly, not sure where else to start.

“Of course you are,” Darth Sidious said, his voice kinder now. “You were suited to it. You needed to hold your power over others, or your power was useless to you.” He paused, cocking his head, adopting a more disappointed look that was the height of condescension on Hux’s face. “You have been given a great gift in your affinity and mastery of the Force. That gift came from me, though you will never understand how. You had two of the best masters, well-suited to your needs at both points in your life. You were given all the teaching you needed to be great. And yet you squandered it. You ignored all criticism, and eventually betrayed and murdered both.”

“I didn’t!” he shouted, growing more defensive now, desperate, yet not daring to take the extra steps to close the distance between them, as he would if it had been anyone else. “I learned! I took everything I needed from them, they were wrong about the rest! They deserved to die! I’m the strongest in the galaxy! I’m Supreme Leader of the First Order!”

Darth Sidious waved a hand dismissively. “That is only because Snoke let his guard down. I do not blame him, you showed no promise as a student. You make for a terrible apprentice, and are even worse at deception. You lack the creativity to lie, except to defend yourself, and even then you are not believable. You have no control of your temper. I would have kept your backstabbing Officer Hux before I made use of you as anything but my sacrifice.”

All of it was said calmly and quietly, as if he was complimenting Kylo. In the same voice he'd used to call Kylo _his_. Kylo’s pulse hammered in his head, and he tried to reconcile Darth Sidious’s demeanor and appearance with the terrible things he was saying. Kylo wasn’t hearing it, _it couldn’t be true_. He’d tried so hard. He’d come so far. He hadn’t done it to be _rejected_.

And yet, after all that, after Darth Sidious was finished speaking, Kylo found his temper had left him, effectively doused by the accurate accusation. He opened and closed his mouth several times, feeling as foolish as Darth Sidious believed. 

The only thing he could manage in his defense was a weak “What?”

Darth Sidious closed the distance between them, laying a hand on Kylo’s shoulder once again. The touch was light at first, then painful again, strong enough to make Kylo wince and jerk away reflexively. He took a few steps backward, gripping his arm, and realized after a moment that it was numb, with pain radiating from where Darth Sidious had touched him. Kylo tried to flex his hand and move the elbow, and found that he could not. He hissed through his teeth, thoughts whirling, trying to understand what was happening.

Because it couldn’t be as Darth Sidious had said. He was _better_ than a sacrifice to the Force. He _was_. He was important, he was-

Darth Sidious began laughing, low and sinister, hands back inside the sleeves of his wide robe, expression contorted into something that looked wrong on Hux’s face, amused and twisted.

Again. This was happening _again_. His master - though, Palpatine hadn’t ever said that, not once, Kylo had only assumed - Kylo had been betrayed. Kylo should have known better, should have known he would never take orders from another, that Darth Sidious would do this to him _again_. Why had he believed this to be his path? What had he assumed would be his reward? _What had he done_? 

Fury washed through him again, familiar, feeding his connection with the Force and minimizing the muscle pain that lingered from whatever Sidious had done to him earlier. The old sense of self-preservation, his hatred for the world, all of it fed his power.

His right arm was useless, so he reached across his body to draw his lightsaber with his left hand, to defend himself. To escape. To destroy Darth Sidious. That, he could do. He was unparalleled in a fight.

But before his hand found the hilt, Darth Sidious’s fingers slid from his sleeves again, flicking negligently, and the hilt jerked away from his belt, clattering uselessly into some dark corner of the meditation chamber. As Kylo turned to find it, to call it back into his hand with the Force, he saw Darth Sidious continue the hand gesture, and abruptly felt himself slamming into the wall behind him, his skull and back colliding with solid durasteel. As the breath left his lungs and pain rang through his body, the Force continued to push him into the wall, and he felt his muscles scream, his bones ache, the cartilage in his ribs crack.

He opened his mouth in a soundless expression of agony, his vision dark for a moment as he fought with consciousness and pain. _Sacrifice_ kept ringing through his thoughts. He was not that. He rejected that. As long as he was awake, he could fight. He would live.

The pressure ceased abruptly, and Kylo slipped from the wall and landed on his feet. Long experience with Snoke’s punishments kept him upright, even as he fought unconsciousness and muscle pain, nausea, his dead right arm, and what felt like the back of his skull getting caved in. But there was nothing wrong with his legs, and they held him as he stood straight, knowing that he would appear unbowed and unbeaten. He took several careful breaths, concealing his emotions, getting the oxygen back into his body. He closed his eyes and drew the pain into himself, used it as he had been taught. Tensed his left arm and tried to order his thoughts.

He couldn’t. This was… too much. It hurt, all of it, physical and mental, and he knew this failure was all-consuming, too much to push down or avoid in the moment. The only thing he could do now was fight, because he knew how to do that.

Darth Sidious stood on the other side of the dim meditation chamber, brows raised and lips stretched into that small secretive smile, hands concealed again. Without allowing himself to think about it, Kylo lunged forward, willing his body to attack, taking several running strides to close the distance between them, left hand outstretched to claw, to punch, to make it impossible to ever hurt Kylo again.

Darth Sidious didn’t move, and only kept the same small smile on his face, but Kylo felt a tendril of Force wrap around his feet, tripping him and causing him to splay across the floor at the other man's feet, breath again knocked from his lungs. It didn’t hurt nearly as much as the last blow had, but the indignity was almost more than Kylo could bear. He hated being humiliated more than anything else.

It was the hatred that gave him the strength to spring up, lunging again, closer this time, his fist back and ready to hit Darth Sidious in the temple, to feel the crunch of bone beneath his fist, to feel it again and again as Kylo took the satisfaction of collapsing his skull and causing his life snap out in the Force as a testament to Kylo’s physical power.

But it was Hux’s face at the other end of his fist, and Kylo hesitated for just a moment as something in him pulled. Deep down, he did not want to kill Hux that way, because that was irreversible. Part of him knew he had already done the irreversible thing, that the being in front of him was not Hux, and Hux was not coming back because Kylo had already killed him. Self-preservation was screaming through every muscle in his body, and yet he could not force himself to do it, confronted with what he’d done and loathing himself for it.

He lost the protective fires of his rage and pain that fed the Dark, and in his moment of hesitation, Darth Sidious put a palm out, freezing Kylo in an effortless Force hold. Kylo pushed, trying to break the hold, humiliated once again. Not even Snoke had done this to him. But whatever hold Darth Sidious had on Kylo, it was so subtle that Kylo couldn’t feel it properly, couldn’t grip it and force it away. He was frozen, just like one of Kylo’s own victims, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Darth Sidious laughed again, low and distinctive, no pleasure visible on his face. “It’s fortunate for me that you are weak. Without full access to my power, it would be difficult if you were more accomplished with your gifts. I need only this shell to master you.”

Kylo could say nothing to this, but the insult burned, giving him back some of his fury. He told himself to think, that there was a way out of this, that Darth Sidious was trying to distract him and keep him here. 

_Think_, Luke had told him, long ago. _Emotions are a distraction, and allowing yourself to be carried away is a path to the Dark side. In any situation, no matter how dire, there is always a way through. The Light will show you the way_. Kylo never allowed himself to dwell on Luke's teachings. But he was desperate now, reaching for anything that would help.

“I sense great confusion in you, young Skywalker. And I sense that confused is all you will ever be. Confused, unsure, unwilling to admit your weakness and move away from the past.”

Darth Sidious was circling him now, steps slow and controlled, examining him as Kylo had done so many times to intimidate others. It was a taunt. Kylo scrabbled helplessly at the hold. He couldn’t break it. Darth Sidious stepped behind him, out of Kylo’s line of sight, and Kylo’s skin began to crawl.

“There is no need for confusion,” he continued. “This matter is very simple. Tell me about the girl, and where I can find her.” His voice was kind again, the same tone Hux used to talk to new recruits before they were led to conditioning. Soothing, trusting. 

His request sounded so reasonable. Like something Kylo could and should do.

Which could only be Force suggestion. Kylo has always been strongest with mind invasion and thought control. He felt for Sidious in his head, finding the thin filaments of suggestion twining through his thoughts and snapping them. It was power, a small victory, and a hold that Sidious could not keep on him. Still he hated himself for being every bit as weak as Sidious believed. He shouldn’t have allowed the hold in the first place, and was unused to facing anyone who could do that to him. 

The shame of that failure was finally enough to rekindle the self-loathing and rage that fueled the Dark, and he used the power of it to leverage himself free of Darth Sidious’s Force hold. He felt a ripple in the Force, a disturbance as he pushed the connection away, and his muscles contracted painfully in the effort to exert his will in the Force. But it was enough, and he landed on his feet and whipped around abruptly, forcing back the darkness threatening unconsciousness at the edges of his vision. If he couldn’t do this, if he couldn’t fight now, he would be dead.

As he turned, he caught one perfect instant of shock on Darth Sidious’s features and saw him take a hesitant step back, as if he hadn’t expected _resistance_ from Kylo. This gave Kylo more confidence. Surer now, he pulled back his fist and took a step forward to land the punch he had attempted earlier. 

But Palpatine was quicker. His pale palms splayed in front of him and his expression shuddered as he conjured Force lightning. It flicked from his fingers to Kylo’s chest in an instant, lighting Hux’s pale features purple in a flash of light so bright that Kylo’s eyes struggled to adjust.

Force lightning had been one of Snoke’s favorite punishments, one that Kylo was well-used to. If his former master had been gifted in anything, it was causing pain in the Force. Darth Sidious’s version could only have been little more than a caress in comparison. But that instant of recognition as it lit Hux’s features, the realization that it was _Hux_ doing it, was so absurd that Kylo could not immediately throw up his usual defenses. The lightning slammed into him at full strength, frying his body and mind and laying him out on the floor again, impacting heavily on his side, completely paralyzed.

He scrambled desperately, knowing he needed to react, needed to _get up_. But his thoughts slid away as he was engulfed in pain so unbearable that he could not channel it. He lacked the control over his body to sit up, to turn his head, to groan aloud. He could only stare vacantly through a curtain of his hair at the dim wall of the meditation pod, in the place where it met the floor. 

After a moment, Hux’s boots appeared in front of his face.

“You are making this difficult, Kylo Ren.” One boot turned into a knee, and Kylo felt the touch of fingers against his face. The touch was barely noticeable, muted and tingling, but he could still feel the fingers brushing his hair back gently away from his eyes. Only his mother and Hux have ever touched his hair like that, and his mind retreated abruptly from the disparity in the two memories - his mother when she had came home at night and young Ben had rushed out to greet her, Hux because he wanted to see more of Kylo’s face during sex. Hux was the only one who had ever said he wanted to see Kylo’s face.

Kylo managed a defeated groan, closing his eyes and dismissing the memories. Darth Sidious’s fingers came to rest against his temple, steady and cool, his firm touch a balm to the tingling in his skin and muscles. 

“Tell me what I need to know. Tell me about the girl. It’s much neater that way.” He leaned in closer, his mouth next to Kylo’s ear. Mercifully, Kylo couldn’t feel his breath, couldn’t see if his hair had escaped the style and was hanging in his eyes.

When he spoke, his voice was low and quiet. “You know I can take whatever I want.”

Kylo’s thoughts ground to a halt, terror seizing him. He pushed back against the confusion and pain as hard as he could. It was still too soon to move after the Force lightning, but he put all the power he could muster behind a mental shield. 

He opened his mouth and managed a slurred response, sounding weak and beaten. “I don’t know where she is. Rey. Only Hux does. He’s the only one that knows where the information is stored. Only he had access.” He closed his eyes, licked his lips. Hated himself for defending himself with an excuse, but he has nothing better. 

"Hux made it so that anyone who did the real reconnaissance and research wouldn't realize what he was really looking for. He hid it from me as insurance, so I wouldn't kill him. There’s no one else that knows, no one else in the Order that can answer your question.”

The hand on his temple disappeared, and Kylo felt pressure on his shoulder, a push to roll him onto his back. Darth Sidious was now kneeling next to him, a mild look on his face. His hands were back inside his sleeves, and he inclined his head in a way that Kylo couldn’t interpret.

Kylo blinked, and in a moment, Darth Sidious’s expression changed, his eyes narrowing, confused. His easy posture stiffened, and his hands slid out of his sleeves and back to his sides. He sat clumsily backwards, onto his feet.

“Ren?” he asked, his voice different now, Kylo’s name coming out in the more familiar way. He glanced around, expression growing more suspicious. “Where are we?” He looked down at himself, held up his arms and studied his pale skin as the wide sleeves slid back to his elbows, his expression growing more disgusted. “And what am I wearing?”

Hux was the only person who ever called Kylo by anything other than his title, and only when they were alone. Kylo’s body was still numb, but he found the strength to push himself up, wincing as pain washed through him. Unthinkingly, he grabbed Hux’s hand, struggling to sense in the Force what was happening. No part of him considered what would happen if he were to take Darth Sidious’s hand.

But he could not sense Sheev Palpatine, and pushing into Hux’s thoughts forcefully enough to make Hux wince, he could only sense Hux, himself again. The only signs of Darth Sidious were the robes and the swept-back hairstyle. Kylo studied him. Even his eyes were green again.

“Armitage. Is it you?”

Hux yanked his hand back, looking more suspicious, glancing around the meditation chamber again. “_Armitage_,” he repeated scornfully. “Who else would it be? Answer my questions. Are we still on the Forest Moon?” He looked past Kylo’s shoulder, out the door of the meditation chamber to the dim twilight of the trees outside.

Hux was alarmed. Kylo could see it in his body language, but also felt it press against his awareness. It meant the effects of the Force lightning were abating, and they would be able to leave soon.

“Yes, we’re still on the Forest Moon. What do you remember?” That was as good a place to start as any. Kylo would need a few more minutes before he could stand and pull them both outside. Night in a strange and haunted forest was preferable to staying here another moment.

“Not… much,” Hux answered, looking back to Kylo, his panic increasing. “I remember landing on the planet, but… after that, I think we were talking, and walking, but I don’t remember-” His expression folded on itself, and he turned away. “I don’t… know. I remember us talking, but it was like I couldn’t understand what we were saying, like we were speaking another language. And I kept getting more and more tired, but I wasn’t… I kept walking and talking, like that didn’t matter. But that’s impossible.” He sat back further, leaning on his hands, moving away from Kylo. “What have you done to me?”

Kylo reached out with his left hand to pull them closer together, to stop Hux from retreating, but also just to touch him. “We came here, and…” He paused, staring into Hux’s angry face. Hux did not like to have control taken from him, and Kylo got the sense that there was little he could do about being blamed for the lost memories. He could come up with a lie, and they could leave, but he was just so _relieved_ that the truth came out instead. “You are a clone of Sheev Palpatine, and the Emperor is trying to use your body. He was here." Kylo swallowed, unable to elaborate on that. "But none of that matters, we just have to leave here, and he’ll stay. We’ll both be fine.” He began trying to push himself to his feet, relief and elation washing through him. _Hux was back_, and Hux could fix this.

“You have to help me,” he said after a moment, frustrated when Hux remained still and he couldn’t stand by himself. “We’re in the middle of nowhere. He hurt me. You’ll have to get us out of here.”

“What,” Hux says, flat and incredulous, blinking rapidly and trying to jerk away from Kylo’s grip on his shoulder. “Everything you just said was nonsense. What does Sheev Palpatine have to do with us being here now?”

“What doesn’t make sense?” Kylo said, angry that Hux doubted him and was wasting time, the volume of his voice climbing. “You’re a clone. There were a lot of clones of Sheev Palpatine, and you were one of them. You were made for him to… I don’t know, inhabit I guess, if he died. He died on this planet, and you got too close, and he… did that.” Kylo’s eyes dropped to Hux’s belt, and he grabbed the two lightsabers, clipping them to his own belt. “Don’t touch these,” he ordered. “That’s what triggered it.”

“Touching lightsabers? The… the what, the ghost of Sheev Palpatine inhabited my body because I touched lightsabers on the Forest Moon of Endor?” Hux’s brow creased, and his hand reached out abortively to the hilts, then dropped. “What are you talking about? I don’t remember touching lightsabers, I don’t even remember coming here! I’m not a clone of Palpatine, I’m just-” His jaw set, and he swallowed. “I’m my father’s son, my mother was a servant, that’s it. I’m not… Sheev Palpatine. I’m not a _clone_.” Hux crossed his arms, obviously setting in for a long argument. It was as much a relief as it was supremely frustrating. “Sheev Palpatine has been dead for thirty years, and there’s no such thing as ghosts.”

Kylo exhaled sharply, gesturing outside. “Then how do you explain what happened to you? Why is your memory missing? What other explanation is there?”

“You’re a Force user, one with a history of mind manipulation,” Hux answered sharply. “That’s the explanation. What are you trying to cover with this ghost story?”

Kylo clenched his jaw, his impatience beating out giddy relief. “If you think I can manipulate your mind like that, why would I lie about it? Why wouldn’t I just make you believe me?”

Hux shrugged, expression implacable. “Because you screwed something up.” 

“I didn’t!” Kylo hissed, leaning in closer. “He possessed you, he’s here, and he’s trying to get back in! We need to leave!”

“I think you've done something to me,” Hux said, voice rising. Kylo could sense he was trying to convince himself that this was true, and not quite succeeding. “And… Sheev Palpatine. That Contingency Plan you're obsessed with.” Hux’s eyes narrowed as he began figuring out the truth. “You brought us here as part of your inane quest to find the Emperor and revive him. And you did something to my mind.”

“I didn’t!” Kylo said, shouting now, hating that there was no way to prove this, and that it was too close to the truth. “I didn’t do anything to your mind. I’ve never altered your memories!” That was technically true, and they needed to leave it at that. “And you knew exactly what I was doing, that I meant to resurrect Sheev Palpatine! You never said it was stupid before!”

“Because I was indulging you! What can I do to stop you? You’d throw me into a console if I called you a fool!”

Kylo was silent for a moment, because that was also true. “Well, this is his escape vessel!” He was still shouting, arguing, but it was so much better than what had happened earlier, and he just needed to get them _out of here_. “These are his lightsabers! That’s his fucking corpse over there!” He gestured to the cockpit, and Hux turned to look at the very convincing corpse that Kylo had nearly forgotten about, barely visible from where they were sitting. “How do you explain how we got here? How did I find it, if you hadn’t led me here! You were the one that ordered the searches, and I know you didn’t send them as far as the forest!”

Hux exhaled, and Kylo could feel his resolve crumbling. It was probably the sad desiccated remains slumped over the console that did it, more than anything else. He was still staring at it. Kylo inhaled sharply, knowing that one more simple admission would help, would banish Hux’s suspicions and make him understand.

“Hux,” Kylo said, lowering his voice and leaning in, gripping his hands once again. Reluctantly, Hux tore his gaze from the corpse in the cockpit and turned back to Kylo, looking pale and pinched. He was _worried_, Kylo could sense it.

“I’m terrified too,” he admitted. “I’m no match for him. He can’t come back. Look at me. I would never ask you for help to stand and walk unless I was afraid for my life. He beat me, Hux. _Me_. And you can see that I want to go right now. If you don't believe I'm telling the truth, you can see that much, at least.”

Hux’s jaw tightened and he swallowed, but his eyes didn’t leave Kylo’s. It was a comfort, now that the yellow had gone from them. “So you’re saying… what? That we landed, and I was possessed by Sheev Palpatine, and I just led us to his body so he could take over mine?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what happened!” Kylo all but shouted again, shifting to stand, pulling Hux’s hands with him. “And we need to leave, get away from here and off-planet. Just don’t let him in your head anymore, we’ll be fine-”

“Not let him in my head?” Hux interrupted, his voice rising now. “What’s that supposed to mean? I thought your plan was to resurrect him, from his corpse or something. Why is he in my head? Supposedly.”

The last was added on. Kylo could sense Hux rejecting the truth of it. Kylo pressed, frustrated. “Look, I don’t know how it's possible. But you know I didn’t do this! I told you, I couldn’t find the Contingency Plan, so I didn’t know what it really was! It was you, it was that he needed access to a clone body to bring himself back.” Kylo paused, thinking about Sidious’s earlier taunt about being a terrible liar. He swallowed, and hoped that it was an exaggeration. “I guess the plan was activated when we touched down. You must have been close enough to draw him in, to complete the ritual. He has to sacrifice you to finish it, so we need to get away.” He paused. “It was an accident,” he added, as an afterthought, hoping that it would be more convincing.

Hux’s expression crumpled, along with his resolve. Kylo could sense it. He had never known Hux to be afraid of anything. Hux had an uncanny ability to think his way out of any situation, to find the advantage. If he felt fear, he repressed it with an iron hand, presumably with the rest of his emotions.

But he was afraid now. Terrified. He believed Kylo, and was overwhelmed. “I led us here?” he asked, finally, voice wavering slightly.

“Yes,” Kylo all but shouted. “I didn’t! You remember that much, right? You were the one that took us here!”

“Because I was… because Sheev Palpatine took over my body.” Hux dropped his eyes to where they were holding hands, then raised them to Kylo’s face again, looking and sounding plaintive. “And it wasn’t you, controlling me in the Force, or him reaching out to you, or any other Force business?”

Hux wanted to believe him. Kylo wanted to convince him, and leave. “It wasn’t me! You remember! I didn’t want to come into the forest, I tried to stop us, because I knew there was a trap! You remember,” he repeated, wanting it to be true.

“I… do,” Hux muttered, looking at their hands again. “I didn’t know… I didn’t understand what we were saying, but I know I was… angry you wouldn’t-” He paused, his expression suddenly desperate, the most upset Kylo had ever seen him. “It’s because I’m a clone?”

Kylo grabbed both shoulders, pleased he had a range of motion in both hands. He tried to push himself up, and couldn’t. He shook Hux, frustrated. “Yes, but Hux. I’m-” he swallowed. He needed to get them out, no matter what. “Hux, I’m begging you, I can’t stand and walk by myself, he attacked me. You have to get us both out of here, we have to get back to the base camp, pull operations, and destroy this planet from orbit. We have to go, and I need your help. I can’t stand, and I can’t find my way back. You have to do it, and you have to keep Darth Sidious from your head in the meantime.”

“Ren, I don’t know what that means!” Hux was in a full-blown panic now. Kylo had never seen it. It was an understated thing, a series of tics and gestures. His expression gave him away, but everything else about him was trying to hold it in, to contain it. Hux never revealed himself willingly. But Kylo was begging, which also never happened, and Hux was _losing control_. “I don’t know… there’s no way I’m a clone!” He looked back into Kylo’s face again, all but begging for that, at least, not to be true. “And how am I supposed to keep Palpatine away, if that’s what’s happening? I can’t use the Force!”

Kylo frowned, not sure why being a clone was more disturbing to Hux than having Sheev Palpatine invade his thoughts. He was growing more frustrated with their circular conversations, and sensed that Hux was almost to his limit. 

Kylo considered. He could use the Force. He could simply make Hux go with him, have him help them out of the forest, and then make him forget all of this. Probably. But he’d never done that to Hux before. And some part of him knew he’d violated Hux enough for one day. He discarded the thought almost as soon as it occurred to him.

Then he realized he didn’t need to use the Force. Hux was a Good Soldier, and could never resist a direct order, no matter how much he loathed it. Kylo could make it an order, and Hux would likely just stand up and leave. They would never speak of this again.

His mouth opened to do just that, but he closed it again as he caught sight of Hux’s face. Hux was profoundly disturbed by what Kylo had said, and it pulled at something in Kylo. It was the same something that had made him pull his punch earlier, the same something that made him take the full brunt of the Force lightning. 

Kylo closed his eyes tightly, hating himself as he realized he wouldn’t be able to leave until Hux was himself again, and understood everything properly. Or, at least, well enough to get him on his feet and past his crisis. Besides, if Hux was unsure of himself, it might provide another way for Darth Sidious to take control of him. Kylo opened his eyes again, frustrated and angry, and mustered as much patience as he could.

“You know what it feels like when Palpatine is in your head, it just happened to you,” Kylo snapped, hating himself more for the way Hux jumped, but he could sense he was getting through Hux’s rising panic. “You had him there until just now! You said it felt like you were speaking another language, and that you were tired. There! Exactly! Stop that from happening. Put up a mental shield, pull away from the temptation. It’s easy, all you have to feel is the difference between while he’s away now, and what it felt like while he was there. Focus on that.”

“Ren, that’s religious nonsense!” Hux shouted back, but Kylo could feel Hux analyzing the instructions, trying to find a way to use them. “Besides, if he’s able to do that, why did he go away? Why did he give up control? What did he say before it happened?”

“He…” Kylo paused. He didn’t want Hux to know that Darth Sidious had threatened to kill him. Kylo’s desperation would seem selfish, and he wanted Hux to believe he was acting for both of them. “He needs two sacrifices. You are one, and he wants the scavenger girl, Rey, because she’s strong in the Force.” Kylo swallowed. “He wanted me to help him find her. But I told him that only you knew where she was.”

Abruptly, Hux’s panic and anxiety dissipated. His expression went slack, and his hands went limp in his lap. His posture relaxed again. Kylo had only a moment to absorb this before he spoke.

“The rebel base. She fled to Safreen, in the Anse system. The base is inside a glacier, bored into the side of a mountain. The approach is through a trench two clicks out. No place to land, you have to go further in and hike there-” Hux’s voice was flat and lacked inflection, though he still spoke with his Rim accent, rather than Palpatine’s smooth Imperial speech. 

Kylo shouted over him, horrified. “Don’t tell me, I don’t want to know! If you tell me, we can’t-”

But before Kylo could finish, Hux blinked, and his eyes were yellow again. Kylo’s hands were still on his shoulders, and Kylo was close, all but shouting into his face. In the time it took Kylo to close his mouth, the thing with Hux’s face smiled again, raising his hands and resting them on Kylo’s forearms. 

Then, there was an awful tearing sensation, a powerful push of Force, the same that had paralyzed his arm so painfully earlier. Except this time, it hit his entire body. It took only a moment for Kylo to fall unconscious, all but certain that he had failed and would never wake again.


	5. Chapter 5

Kylo was aware of the pain even before he regained consciousness. It crawled over his awareness, sharp in his thoughts, electric in his joints, aching deep in his muscles. It was an all-over pain, and one he was very familiar with. Slowly, he opened his eyes, blinking the sticky feeling from them and dimly aware of being laid out on the floor of a chill chamber awash in blue, flickering light. For a moment, he believed he was back with Snoke, and he struggled to remember what he’d done to displease the Supreme Leader.

Then, he remembered. He’d done this to himself.

He was lying facedown on the cold durasteel floor, and the pain in his nerves and muscles was exquisite. He didn’t try to struggle or push himself up. He rolled his head, joints creaking, and tried to focus his eyes, willed himself to spot any immediate threats in the darkness of the meditation chamber, much dimmer now that it was full night in the forest beyond the open hatch. He could feel a cool breeze blowing in, dissipating the stale air and cloying scent of decay, and heard the echoing of screaming night-creatures far off in the forest. He could feel all that, smell it, but none of that was here and now, and Kylo wanted to know if the present darkness was safe for him.

Rolling his head to face the other side of the chamber, he spotted a dim form seated on the floor. He immediately put up the strongest mental shields he could manage, knowing it would do him no good. Darth Sidious would already know he was awake, and could likely all but taste his self-loathing.

He held his breath for the space of several heartbeats, waiting for the punishment, for the lightning, for those yellow eyes to turn on him and narrow, more visible than anything else in the chamber. But nothing happened. As Kylo allowed himself to exhale and relax, he realized the figure’s posture was all wrong - his knees were drawn up, face hidden, sleeves pulled back and bare arms defensively wrapped around his shins.

Tentatively, Kylo lowered his mental shields. There was nothing but the dull hum of life from outside the meditation chamber, the plants and animals in the forest slotting into the natural flow of the Force, the kind of things he unconsciously filtered from his awareness. There was no sense of the figure in the room. Not the uncanny ripples he’d felt earlier, nor the repellent abyss that had felt like it was absorbing all life around it. He knew that Darth Sidious had been working to shield himself, but Kylo had assumed the intended effect was to feel like a normal human being in the Force. What he felt now was nothing, like there was no figure there at all.

Kylo sat frozen in indecision. He could not fool Darth Sidious, and he would do to Kylo as he liked. But nothing about the figure in the room with him looked or felt like Darth Sidious, and Kylo wanted so badly for it to be Hux again. 

Besides. Darth Sidious wouldn’t kill him unless it was sunrise.

“General.” Kylo’s voice came out weak and cracked, the final syllable all but disappearing in a breathy exhalation.

Still, it was enough. The figure glanced up at him. He looked awful, his expression haunted and defeated. His fingers had been in his hair, pulling out the strange slicked-back style it had been in, and it was hanging in front of his eyes. Kylo’s breath caught again. Hux would never let himself be seen like this, not even by Kylo.

But his eyes were green in the low light, just barely visible, and Kylo knew it had to be him. It was Hux, and Hux would take care of everything, would take whatever opportunity he could to save his life and get them out. He felt his pulse quicken as he took another breath, willing his voice to sound stronger.

“General. Thank Force. What time is it? Why are we still here?”

Kylo’s voice was still too weak, and he sounded pathetic and desperate. And _Thank Force_? He hadn’t said that since he turned ten. He needed more control, needed to not be laying face-down on the floor. But a slow flexing of his fingers was all he could manage through the pain.

Hux’s only response was to stare. After a moment, he turned his head to gaze out the open hatch of the meditation chamber, then gestured to it with a hand. Kylo managed to turn his head to look, seeing the same darkness he’d noted earlier. But it didn’t tell him anything helpful.

“I know where the door is. I want the local time, and I don’t have any tech on me,” Kylo replied more sharply than he’d intended, trying again to push himself into a sitting position and failing. The pain and physical weakness in front of Hux made his temper even shorter. “The time is important. And you sent a comm, right? To have someone come and pick us up? They should be looking for us by now.”

Hux remained silent, gaze sliding past Kylo and focusing on nothing. As Kylo waited for something, anything that would mean they were leaving, Hux only lowered his face into his knees again. Kylo’s spinning thoughts ground to a halt, overtaken by uneasiness. He spoke again, hoping that Hux was just angry.

“Well. They’re looking for you, anyway. My comm silence is standard, but I’m sure you’ve been missed. The operation probably halted without your constant check-ins.” 

Kylo couldn’t quite manage the appropriate _you were right_. It hardly mattered. He felt nothing from Hux, no emotions or presence, and Hux still wouldn’t look at him. Dread crawled through him again, but he couldn’t quite believe that this was some trap Darth Sidious had set for him.

“Look, whatever.” Kylo swallowed, gritting his teeth through the dread and physical pain, and managed to roll onto his side. New pain overtook him - his shoulder, his hip, his neck. He ignored it all, focusing only on getting a reaction from Hux. “It doesn’t matter if you’ve sent the comm, or if they’re looking. The most important thing is that we get away from this escape vessel as fast as we can.” Kylo’s eyes strayed down to Hux’s belt again, to the lightsabers that had obviously been reclaimed, and the blaster that hung with them. The threat of the weapons was enough to make him trail off for a moment. The lightsabers were dangerous, and he’d lied to Hux about them earlier, but the memory of Hux trying to shoot him in a similar situation temporarily eclipsed his fear of Darth Sidious. This time, he likely deserved it.

He closed his eyes. He had to trust Hux. He couldn’t do this by himself. 

When he opened his eyes again, he tried to put more confidence in his voice than he felt. “I know you don’t understand what’s going on, but I don’t have time to explain. We need to leave.”

He waited, rolling his head back to gaze at the dark ceiling, but Hux remained silent. Outside, a creature buzzed in the dark forest nearby, and Kylo hoped it was nothing they needed to fight off.

He sighed, closing his eyes. He was _tired_. His head was throbbing, and he couldn’t think well enough to outmaneuver Hux right now. Darth Sidious’s earlier taunts came back to him. He was right. 

“You’ve told me before I don’t know when to quit? Well, I’m quitting, General. I’m defeated. We can’t win, and we need to leave as fast as we can.”

There. That was the concession he’d tried to give earlier. But it was met with only silence. Concession or not, Hux was ignoring him. Kylo couldn’t guess why. It would be like him to make Kylo suffer as they waited for a Trooper unit to recover them. But… Kylo didn’t think it was that. Hux looked terrible, somehow distant and sad, and Kylo knew he’d never let a Trooper unit see him like that.

So Kylo took a deep breath, braced himself against the pain, and managed to drag himself to a corner and sit up, back against the wall, legs spread in front of him, facing Hux across the chamber. 

He blinked several times, trying to think of something else to say. It was unlike Hux not to seize opportunity and run, he really should have been able to extract both of them with no issues. But… perhaps Hux felt it too, that there was something terribly wrong in this place. Confidence and control weren’t reaching Hux, so Kylo gave up, letting Hux see that he was worried, too.

“You are Armitage Hux, right? You would have said something if it wasn't really you, I guess. You wouldn’t have been able to stand hearing me make a fool of myself.” Kylo closed his eyes and swallowed again. His voice came out in a murmur, barely above a whisper, desperate. “It’s you? And you remember earlier? What we talked about? About…”

He couldn’t say the name aloud, it might bring the other back. Kylo opened his eyes, desperate for a sign of recognition from Hux. Mercifully, Hux gave it. He straightened again, looking at Kylo for several seconds before nodding once, the gesture almost imperceptible.

It was all the encouragement Kylo needed. He closed his eyes, and told the truth.

“I can’t stop him. I can’t make him go away. But if we leave and never come back, that will work. I can’t do this without you.” Kylo opened his eyes and leveled his gaze at Hux again, willing himself not to plead. “And you stopped him, didn’t you? You must have. If you’re yourself now, and not him?”

The last came out more of a question than he wanted. But Kylo wanted to be certain that Hux was wholly himself. He also realized, once he stopped talking, that he was babbling. He clenched his jaw to let the pain of it overwhelm his other feelings, just for a moment. He needed to keep the panic from surfacing, to keep the groan of defeat that threatened to break through and never stop locked inside. The pain, though there was a lot of it, was barely enough of a distraction. 

It occurred to Kylo that, of all the things he’d done in his life, of all the bad situations he’d been in, this was the worst.

He tried to take a slow breath, but grunted slightly at a sharp twinge of pain in his side. Very likely a cracked rib. He couldn’t breathe, he could barely move. He’d all but told Armitage Hux he was frightened. Hux, who had tried to kill him on more than one occasion, who only ever waited for a moment of weakness to bring down his enemies. Hux was extremely dangerous at times like this, and Kylo was all but rolling over and showing him his belly. 

But it didn’t seem to matter, because Hux still wasn’t speaking to him.

Kylo didn’t know what else to offer Hux, so he gave up, resting the back of his head against the wall and closing his eyes, focusing on compartmentalizing his pain again, pushing it down along with everything else. He could control that, at least. He could use it, ignore it, and he’d be able to walk out of here himself if Hux wasn’t going to help.

His eyes shot back open when, finally, Hux responded.

“I’m myself. I still don’t know how I stopped him. Or if I did stop him.”

“That’s fine,” Kylo rushed out, leaning forward and wincing. Hux’s expression was still terrible, _haunted_, but he was talking now, and that was better. “It doesn’t matter, he’s-”

“I just woke up, and I remembered everything again. What you said before.” Hux spoke over him in a louder tone, as if Kylo wasn’t talking at all, and Kylo fell silent again. “I still don’t know what’s going on. You said I was a clone. But that’s not true. You were looking at the wrong file, or someone altered my record to amuse themselves.” Hux swallowed. “Possibly my father. I’m too much like him to be a clone.”

Kylo frowned. “It’s not like being a clone would have anything to do with your father making you into a shitty person. You can be a clone, and your father’s son.” Kylo huffed sharply, realizing what he’d said was perhaps not the right thing, then continued. “I just heard Sheev Palpatine come back to life and _tell_ me you were a clone, and that the link was how he was resurrecting himself. He said… he said he looked just like you when he was younger.” This detail haunted him more than the rest of it. He took a breath, still upset by it. “I couldn’t be more fucking certain that you are part of the Emperor’s contingency. I saw it with my own eyes.”

“A spare. Only kept close for this.” Hux put his face back to his knees. “Right. My father and my instructors always told me I was a weak, useless coward. But I was patient. Staying alive proved them wrong. Being patient meant I could see every one one of them fall. I could cause it myself. I decided I would endure anything, and that coming out on top was all that mattered.” He turned back to Kylo, face visible, but still leaning into his knees. “But they were right. All this time, and I was nothing more than a warm body whose survival was assured.” He laughed humorlessly, so unlike how he’d laughed earlier. “If I had known they weren’t allowed to kill me, things would have been very different.”

Kylo shook his head, angry. “You expect me to believe that you’re, what, sad about all this? None of that matters! Who cares what they think of you, if you decided to kill them? The only important thing is that we need to leave! We need to leave right now and get as far away from here as fast as we can. If we leave the planet, and if-” Kylo’s eyes dropped to the lightsabers, still uneasy about them. “If you don’t touch the lightsabers again, we’ll be fine. We won’t ever have to worry about the Emperor again.”

Hux sat up straighter now, legs stretched in front, brows shooting up. “What if he does come back?”

Kylo struggled to push himself away from the wall, and clenched his jaw against the new wave of pain. He still couldn’t stand, let alone throw Hux over his shoulder and leave like he absolutely needed to. “If he comes back, we’ll both die in an hour, or five hours, whenever the sun comes back up! You’ll stop being yourself forever, and-” He faltered, leaning back slightly. He realized that he’d admitted they’d both die, so he decided to begrudgingly admit the truth. “And he’s going to sacrifice me to the Force or something, I don’t know.”

Hux shook his head, his expression shifting to incredulity, more like himself. “You don’t know? Why don’t you know? I thought that was what you were doing, researching whatever resurrection nonsense you could find for this. I thought you wanted to bring him back with Darth Vader. Shouldn’t you be an authority?”

“No! I mean, I guess I was reading a lot of that, but… I was looking for the Contingency Plan. I thought Darth Sidious would have recorded anything I needed there. When I couldn’t find it, I… yeah, I was trying to find something like what he might have done, so I could recreate it. But I don’t care about any of that ritual stuff. I-” He paused again, voice coming out less sure than he’d intended. “I didn’t realize that’s what it looked like I was doing.”

“How was I supposed to know? You weren’t exactly forthcoming about whatever it was that you were researching.”

“Well, no. I didn’t… I wasn’t really researching the Force...” Finally, it hit him: What Hux was getting at. That Kylo had _planned_ this. Well, yes. Of course. He made his voice louder, more confident. “I didn’t know this would happen. I never found anything about it. As you know. He hid everything too well, or destroyed it.”

Kylo set his mouth when he finished, and resisted the urge to cross his arms. Hux narrowed his eyes, expression now more suspicious, but still better than the hopelessness of earlier. Kylo still couldn’t sense him in the Force, but he knew Hux was wary.

"You were on Arkanis. Just before you asked for all this." Hux gestured to the meditation chamber.

Kylo swallowed. "Yes. But. There was just the usual there. A dead end. The system didn't even work that well."

Hux's face grew darker. "It didn't?"

Kylo looked away. "Well, it was in bad shape. It barely worked."  
  
"And you found nothing there. The data simply erased itself, just like all the other Imperial systems do when they sense unauthorized access?"

This was getting more dangerous. Kylo decided an admission would be better than Hux catching him in a lie. "It wasn't unauthorized, okay? I stole Brendol's code cylinders from your room. I found them."

Hux was silent for a moment, obviously furious. Kylo tried to reach out for his thoughts again, and encountered only the nothingness.

"I see. So you decided to check the Imperial Academy's files after you recovered code cylinders that could access the data. Except you found nothing, and the system didn't even work that well. And then you came back and tried to seduce me into coming to this planet."

This was getting worse. "Yeah, I found basically nothing!" His voice was getting louder, and he could hear himself getting more defensive. He couldn't stop himself. "I looked at your file, okay! Right after you commed. But it was locked under additional security." He glanced away. That was true. "The only part I could read said you were a native of Kamino. I didn't understand, until-" he stopped and gestured, hoping that Hux would take the implication and not press for more.

It didn't work. Hux's voice was growing louder, the tenseness in his shoulders grew tighter. "You're telling me that my father, the head of the academy, didn't have access to his son's files in the system? And you expect me to believe that?"

"It's an old system," Kylo hissed defensively, still not looking at Hux. "And maybe the cylinders needed were lost. Or corrupted, or something."

"Right."

"Look," Kylo said, meeting Hux's gaze again, "I wasn't looking at your record to find the Emperor's Contingency Plan! I didn’t find anything on Arkanis. I looked you up to see if you were a bed wetter. I wasn't looking there to see if Empire’s biggest secret was that you were a fucking clone.”

“Right.” Hux turned away again. “I suppose that would be a dirty secret." He laughed mirthlessly. "I suppose I should be used to that. Brendol's bastard was all I ever was. But... a clone is worse than that." His voice faltered. "Never really even a Hux. Just Armitage.”

“I’ll call you Hux all you want, whatever, just… we don’t have time for your identity crisis right now! We have to leave, and if you need to… do that,” Kylo gestured with one hand, frustrated, “just do it in private, on your own ship!”

“We always have time for an identity crisis from you,” Hux shot back, looking up and sounding more like his old self, what he said to Kylo in private. He crossed his arms and glared at Kylo. “And it’s not like I have an identity to have a crisis about. I’m nobody.”

“What-” Kylo began, still frustrated, hardly able to believe what he was seeing. “I can’t believe this is all it took. All the time I spent trying to find your weakness, and it’s this.” Kylo half-expected that this was an act on Hux’s part, some trap he wasn’t seeing. “You run a program that brainwashes everyone into thinking and dressing the same! How can you possibly have a problem with this?”

Somehow, this struck a cord that Kylo had never been able to touch before. Hux all but sprang up, absolutely furious. “How could you understand? You never agreed to the conditioning! And I’m sure you were always told how _special_ you were. By your parents. By the galaxy. By Snoke, when he had you on the floor at his mercy. Everyone in my life has told me I was nothing. And they were right!”

Though Kylo knew better, shouting matches with Hux were a weakness of his. He could never resist responding in kind. It didn’t help that they hadn’t had one in some time - not since Kylo had become Supreme Leader, when Hux had tried to shoot him and Kylo had Force-choked him. He couldn’t stop himself from shouting back, though he knew he should respond differently, that perhaps Hux needed careful handling in the moment in order to ensure survival. 

“Everything is the same as it was yesterday! It will be the same tomorrow too, if we just fucking leave right now!”

Hux took two more threatening steps closer, his fists bunched dangerously close to weapons that Kylo could not defend himself against. Kylo opened his mouth to tell Hux not to touch the lightsabers, but Hux was shouting again.

“You _don’t understand!_ Clones are subhuman. They are fodder. Disposable soldiers. Imperial Officers had no respect for them. The last clone soldier had been dead for twenty years, and they were _still_ teaching us that they were only meat in our classes. Clones are barely people. They are grown in a tube to serve a purpose, and that purpose is all they ever are, or will be.”

Kylo shook his head, still in disbelief. “You’ve lived your life not knowing you’re a clone, and you’re just as real as I am! And besides, any children born to officers or troopers in the Order are treated exactly the same. Everybody is fodder for your war machine.”

“_My_ war machine,” Hux mocked, as if he hadn’t redesigned every part of the training programs to suit his own designs. He pushed his hair back from his face, unconsciously pushing it back into a semblance of its usual style with the fingers of his right hand. “That’s different.”

Kylo wanted to shout another retort, but all the shouting and frustration had increased his pulse, and his head was throbbing with pain in time to his beating heart. He tried again to stand, but instead lowered himself down to his side, pushing his face into the cool deck of the ship. He closed his eyes, compartmentalizing the pain again. It was getting easier to move, and the pain was lessening, but something was still very wrong with his body. He’d never been hurt like this by Snoke, and he wondered if whatever Darth Sidious had done to him was permanent. Would the pain go away? Would he be able to stand?

After a moment, he rolled onto his back, looking at Hux across the room. Hux was still standing with his fists clenched at his sides, tunic sleeves down at his wrists, face red with anger. “Look, all of this can stay between us, I don’t care. No one will find out you’re a clone. I’ll forget it tomorrow, if you want. It won’t matter if we leave and stop the ritual now. If we don’t, he'll take your body.”

“You just said you knew nothing of his… resurrection process. How do you know that leaving will stop it? If I’m really a clone of the Emperor, and he’s- inside my thoughts,” Hux paused, obviously finding this as distasteful as Kylo did, “how could leaving the planet possibly matter?”

Kylo closed his eyes, not sure how to respond. He simply _knew_ it would work, could feel it in the Force. But Hux hated it when Kylo tried to explain decisions dictated by the will of the Force, and he didn’t want to start another shouting match now that Hux was more himself and Kylo could convince him to leave.

He was also too relieved to see Hux as himself to intentionally make him angry. But that was a useless impulse, and Kylo quickly pushed the thought away.

Instead, he lied. “Proximity is always an important part of Force rituals.” This could not be a bigger pile of bantha shit - the Force was in all things. But Hux was as uninterested in the basic tenants of the Force as Kylo had been about the eternal life garbage. “Rituals usually require a place of power, like this meditation chamber, and an artifact, like those lightsabers.” Kylo waved his hands in the air to indicate the chamber and weapons, then pushed himself off the floor and back into a sitting position, feeling even more confident when he managed to sit up with less pain. “This ritual also requires a sacrifice, which is me. So we both have to leave. And when we’re far enough away, you’ll be fine.”

This came out sounding patient, reasonable, and far from Kylo’s incredulity of a few minutes ago. Still, something about it hadn’t satisfied Hux. His arms were still crossed, expression wary, body language tense. Kylo tried to push out with the Force again, find out what exactly Hux was looking for, but once again, he was unable to sense Hux at all. The absence was… upsetting, to say the least, since Hux's emotions had always been easy to read.

“You said earlier that the scavenger girl was the sacrifice.”

Kylo shrugged, the lie coming more easily this time. “She’s not nearby. And Darth Sidious is not patient.”

Hux stared at him, his expression going carefully neutral, everything about him making Kylo feel foolish. What had Kylo said wrong? Perhaps it had been the idea that Sheev Palpatine wasn’t patient, which was a little far-fetched. 

But it didn’t really matter. Kylo was more certain that Hux was finished with whatever hopelessness had overcome him earlier. It was Hux’s green eyes glaring at him, and not the yellow eyes of a Sith lord. They could leave and pretend none of this had happened.

Hux’s expression slowly shifted back to incredulity. Kylo shook his head, bracing himself for another attempt to stand.

“Okay, if that’s everything, help me stand and we’ll start into the forest-”

“Who killed Snoke?” Hux interrupted, his gaze still fixed on Kylo.

Kylo froze, collapsing back onto the floor in a painful _thump_. He couldn’t keep the surprise off his face, or stop the automatic lie that came out unbidden. “Who cares about Snoke? The scavenger killed him. Good riddance.”

Hux frowned, but his stare continued to pin Kylo to the spot, and Kylo suddenly felt uneasy again, the creeping tingle of dread shooting up his neck. Hux took another step closer, body language looser now, expression dangerous.

“The first time I woke up, you told me everything that happened here was an accident. That we were only here because I happened to be at the ruins of the second Death Star, close enough to where the Emperor died that…” Hux gestured vaguely toward the cockpit, where his corpse slumped over the console only meters away, “his ghost, or whatever, could reach out and possess me. That it was only because I was- I’m a clone. The right person.”

Hux’s voice wavered slightly at the end, but otherwise he was beginning to sound angry, like he was gearing up for a fight again. Kylo didn't know what point Hux was trying to make. He sat up on his knees, noting once again that he was moving with much less pain, and decided that they could have this fight in the forest.

“Yeah, that’s exactly what happened. I explained everything again just now. Can we-”

“So you really had no idea that I would be in danger?”

“No!” Kylo planted one foot, bracing himself for a careful attempt to stand. Hux was close enough that Kylo reached out and took one of his hands, more desperate now. Kylo was still wearing gloves, so he couldn’t feel whether Hux’s hands were as cold as they had been when Darth Sidious touched his face. And he hated kneeling in front of Hux. Kylo pushed those useless, random thoughts away and tried for something that sounded more genuine.

He looked into Hux’s eyes, mustered as much sincerity as he could, and tried again. What came out was very nearly true. “Of course I didn’t know. Not really.”

Hux’s face crumpled into utter disgust, eyes sharp, mouth twisted. He yanked his hand away, then took two steps backward. “_Liar_.”

Kylo jerked slightly in surprise. There was no way Hux knew he was lying. And it wasn’t as if they had a history of honesty with each other. Hux’s suspicions wouldn’t normally cause such an extreme reaction. But Kylo masked his jump of surprise with an attempt to stand. His legs wouldn’t hold him, and he sat back down, legs in front of him again. At least he wasn’t kneeling.

He looked back up into Hux’s furious expression, schooled his features to something plaintive, and tried for sincerity. “I’m not! Do you really think I’d lead us both into danger like this? And besides, I always assumed you’d be with me, when I figured out how to resurrect Darth Sidious and Darth Vader.”

“You’re not telling the whole truth,” Hux said, still angry, taking another step back. “You did read my file on Arkanis. It was restricted, and you used Brendol's code cylinders to unlock it. You found out I was a clone, then didn’t say anything?”

“Okay, yes, I found out you were a clone on Arkanis! I’m glad I didn’t say anything, you obviously can’t handle the truth!” Kylo burst out, hating that he was getting angry. This wasn’t how he’d convince Hux.

Hux flexed his jaw and narrowed his eyes. “What else did it say?”

“Nothing!”

“Nothing. So, you came back from Arkanis and insisted on a rushed operation to salvage the second Death Star, which has sat untouched for thirty years. You insisted that I had to come planetside with you, even though I told you I couldn’t. And that was all an _accident_?”

“Yes! It was obviously the will of the Force!” He cursed himself inwardly, knowing that Hux wouldn’t believe that. He needed to change the subject, or leave, or both. He closed his eyes, counted to three, and tried again. “Look, reading your file, that’s what made me come back to the ship, and… say all those things to you. In bed.” Kylo dropped his gaze, couldn’t actually look at Hux as he spoke. “I just… realized how much you did for me. Like you said. It made me want to start on Starkiller right away, because it was what you wanted. I realized how important you were, is all.”

Kylo shrugged, hating himself, wondering if he should just leave without Hux. Hux would never let him live this down. But while he was struggling with sincerity, Hux stepped forward, closing the distance between them. He was not expecting Hux’s fist in his tunic, was not expecting Hux to jerk him forward - a physical confrontation, which Hux would never attempt in his right mind. Kylo was too stunned to respond. He could only look up into Hux’s face, centimeters from his own, as furious Kylo had ever seen him.

“You. Are. _Lying_.”

“I’m not!” Kylo tried to push away, but Hux shook him violently. Kylo was too stunned to defend himself. 

Hux continued shouting into his face. “Yes, I’m a clone of Sheev Palpatine! And there’s something _wrong_ with me, something I haven’t felt before, something inside my head! Because I can fucking _sense_ that you’re lying to me, the same as you with those pathetic interrogation suspects! I can feel the dissonance when you say it, and it’s infuriating that I had to speak to you for so long before I realized my headache was because you were a backstabbing opportunist!”

The implications of that were staggering. Kylo could only shake his head, even more shocked. “You’re not. You’re not Force-sensitive. That’s impossible.”

“Sheev Palpatine emphatically is!”

Hux pushed Kylo hard enough to send him to the floor on his back, muscles still screaming in protest. Kylo propped himself on his elbows, and they stared at each other in silence, Hux crouched over him. Kylo thought Hux might attack him again, perhaps with the weapons this time, and there was nothing Kylo could do about it. Instead, Hux glanced away, then stood and began pacing the chamber angrily, not looking at him. Kylo’s gaze followed him, still shocked.

How could it be true? Kylo couldn’t feel anything from Hux, still, and it suddenly occurred to him that Hux may have been unintentionally shielding his thoughts. That was somehow worse. Kylo, always gifted at invading the minds of others, pushed out his own awareness, sinking into the _nothing_ where Hux’s thoughts always were, insulting and organized and a constant since he’d joined the Order so long ago. He pushed, combing through the nothing, and - yes, Hux had rudimentary shields up, Kylo hadn’t noticed. Since Hux shouldn’t be able to _do_ that.

Invading the mind of another Force sensitive being was a delicate matter, if Kylo wished to do it undetected. But he’d never taken such care with Hux, and didn't do it now, either. Hux paused, turning to glare at him as he held a hand to his head, obviously sensing the intrusion but not bothering to comment on it.

“You did this. You did this to _both of us_.”

Kylo raised a hand abortively, though he couldn’t say why. To defend himself? To deny it? There was just-

It was all too much. This was making everything worse.

Resigned, he laid his back and stretched out, slowly flexing his stiff and painful muscles. The pain was down to a dull throb, but manageable.

“Technically, it’s not my fault. I’m not the one that was into cloning.”

He heard Hux’s steps pause, then continue with more purpose, his boots snapping against the floor until he was next to Kylo’s head, looking down at him, furious.

“You are an absolute waste of life and effort. This is the worst fucking possible betrayal. You know that, right? I’m having difficulty believing that you, a person who has given public speeches about the value of loyalty and the penalties for betrayal, are a big enough hypocrite to do something like this.”

“It wasn’t a betrayal of my path. I’ve been seeking a connection to the Dark side and the resurrection of Darth Sidious since before I met you.” Kylo pushed himself back up on his elbows, annoyed that the accusation of betrayal stung as much as it did. “Besides. I thought we were trying to kill each other.”

Hux glanced away. “That’s different. But tell me. How did that path to the Dark side work for you, in the end?”

That made Kylo’s temper flare again, and he shot to his feet, heedless of the pain. “Pretty fucking well! I’m Supreme Leader of the First Order!”

“Not anymore.”

Kylo clenched his fists, then walked past Hux, adrenaline and anger stabilizing his legs and making his gait as easy as usual. But he was too angry to appreciate it. He slammed his palm into the wall of the meditation chamber, his back to Hux. “It went terribly! What do you think? You know how fucking bad I am at making decisions. Did you ever expect me to end up any other way? Really?”

Hux made a noise behind him. “You give orders every day. You’re capable of decisive action under appalling conditions in battle. Your particular brand of brazen refusal to accept reality works quite well, under the right circumstances. Of course you’re good at making decisions.”

Kylo turned, incredulous again, not quite believing he’d heard correctly. Was Hux _complimenting_ him? He pushed again with the Force, hard enough to make Hux wince and put a hand to the back of his head, annoyed, but Kylo sensed only sincerity. Somehow, that was worse.

“Now I’m good at making decisions? That’s not what you’ve said before.”

“You bypass High Command. I’ve told you it’s more efficient.”

“No! You always tell me not to!”

Hux rolled his eyes. “Because I’m supposed to disapprove of that. I don’t generally tell you my opinion. I always assumed you knew. You are a mind reader.”

Kylo was still angry, and didn’t know what to do with that information, so instead he turned back to the wall and leaned against it with his forearms. He let Palpatine’s words ring through his thoughts, searing and humiliating.

_"You showed no promise as a student. You make for a terrible apprentice, and are even worse at deception. You lack the creativity to lie, except to defend yourself, and even then you are not believable.”_

Fuck him. Kylo closed his eyes and did one of the calming meditations that Luke had taught him. _Breathe. Let the frustrations flow from you as you exhale. We learn from pain, and we move on, leave it behind, release it into the Force._

It was one of the only meditations that Luke had taught him that worked, if Kylo really did need to calm down. Rather than stoking his anger and using it to fuel the Dark, he released it, momentarily relishing the clarity of his thoughts.

He straightened and turned back around, then immediately tensed when he saw Hux handling one of the lightsabers, holding the hilt in two palms and examining the smooth metal.

He had time to shout and reach out, but managed to stop himself when Hux looked up, annoyed, eyes still green. With his pulse still racing, Kylo took a moment to realize that no real user would ever hold a lightsaber that way. But the outburst was embarrassing enough to make Kylo defensive, and he still didn’t want Hux holding a weapon in his current state of mind. He hesitated a moment, then stepped closer to pretend nonchalance, hissing under his breath.

“Don’t activate it. The resonance will probably only invite Palpatine back into your mind.”

Hux looked more annoyed, then glanced down to the hilt again. “I told you, I can sense when you’re lying. And even if I couldn’t, do you hear yourself? _The resonance_? Honestly.”

Kylo wanted to be offended by this, especially since Hux had just said that resonance was how he could tell Kylo was lying. Painfully, he let the argument go. The hilt was still a bad idea. And Hux was still holding it while convinced Kylo had offered him up as a sacrifice to the Emperor.

“Then why have it out at all? It’s not like you’ll ever defeat me with it.” As he was speaking, he glanced around nervously, stretching out his awareness and finding the cracked signature of the kyber crystal in his own hilt. As subtly as he could, he opened his palm and pulled it to him, feeling immediately better.

“I wasn’t planning to fight you with it.”

Kylo sensed the truth in this. Hux wasn’t trying to kill him. Which was… unexpected. Hux had been looking for an opening for some time, Kylo knew, and he had every reason to try it now. Kylo was obviously physically weak, and Hux’s odds were good. But Kylo pushed deeper into Hux’s thoughts to confirm - for whatever reason, Hux wasn’t currently planning on killing him or leaving him behind. He did, however, hate Kylo.

Kylo leaned against the wall, still upright, and closed his eyes. Warmth spread in his chest, and he hated it, hated that Hux not trying to kill him made him sentimental. They needed to leave, but Kylo also needed to… do something. About that.

“Okay, look. I was researching the Contingency Plan on Arkanis, yeah. I knew Darth Sidious left a way to resurrect himself. I’ve been looking for the evidence of it for years. Snoke knew about it, but wouldn’t tell me. No one would tell me. I wanted to find another connection to Darth Vader, too. I thought he would eventually come back, that Darth Sidious would have a way to do that, too.” Kylo pushed a hand through his hair, frustrated, and looked away. “So yeah, when I found your file on Arkanis and it had the only information I’d ever seen about the Contingency Plan, yes, it was an accident that I found it. I didn’t expect to find it there. It said that you were a clone, and that in the event of the Emperor’s death, you were one of eight clones that could be brought to his remains to facilitate his return. Rax and Brendol were the two COs that knew that about you. They were charged with safeguarding you. It said that you should be brought to the site of the Emperor’s death and you would resurrect the Emperor, somehow.”

When he looked back, Hux was still looking down at the lightsaber hilt, but his fingers had stilled. Kylo could sense his focus, but Hux didn’t otherwise react to the story. So Kylo continued, more belligerent now.

“So when I read that, I didn’t know _this_ would happen. That part is true. I didn’t think you would die. I didn’t think about it at all. I just _did_ it. I didn’t care how it would work, just that it would.”

“You didn’t think about it,” Hux muttered, stowing the hilt on his belt again. For a moment, there was a ripple in the sense of the Force, and he worried that Hux had gone away. But it was simply Hux’s fury, the Force reacting to him now, because… because. Hux looked up, hair still a little tousled and falling into his green eyes, and Kylo clenched his jaw. Hux looked good angry, and Kylo couldn’t help but notice.

“You didn’t think about it. And why would you? It was just me, just General Hux, the person who singlehandedly runs the First Order for you. The person you have sex with. _The only person you ever speak to_.”

Hux was shouting now, and Kylo pressed his back against the wall as Hux closed the distance between them again, black robe swishing around his boots. Kylo wasn’t afraid of Hux, not exactly, but… he wasn’t used to facing his wrath, either. Or anyone’s anger, outside of battle. His hands flexed. He couldn’t fight, and he didn’t know what to do. So he opened his mouth and said something stupid.

“The Emperor would have run the Order, once he was resurrected.”

Hux stared at him for several long seconds, then turned away, his expression unreadable and shadowed in the dimness of the meditation chamber. His fury was abruptly extinguished, his usual indifference in place. “Right. It doesn’t matter. It’s not like we were close. Or companions. It was only ever work.”

“It wasn’t! It’s like you said. We were close!” Hux didn’t respond to this, didn’t even look at him, and Kylo rushed on, suddenly sensing that this was important, and telling himself not to think about it. They needed to leave, but probably this did need to happen first. “It’s true. You must see it. I did care, once I realized what was happening. And… on the planetary approach, I realized that something would probably happen to you. And I realized I didn’t want to lose you. So.”

Kylo’s voice grew less confident as he continued, and Hux remained silent. This was… difficult. And there was no point, if it really didn’t mean anything to Hux. But he thought it might. It was just a matter of getting Hux to admit it.

“So? Find the lie, Hux. _Use the Force_.” He spread his hands, inviting an argument. “It’s all true, and fucking humiliating.”

“So what?” Hux snapped, turning back to him, stepping closer so that they were standing face to face. He was angry again, and showing it, but it was so much better than his indifference. “How do I know you can’t lie? I don’t! And really, you expect me to believe that drivel? That you _didn’t want to lose me_?”

Hux had imitated Kylo’s Republic accent on the last, in a mocking tone of voice. Somehow, it made Kylo smile.

“Yeah, I didn’t.”

Hux gestured sharply between them, still angry. “What am I supposed to do with that?”

The truth was mortally embarrassing, and there was a chance that Hux would pull out his blaster and shoot Kylo upon hearing it. It would put both of them out of their misery. But this was still somehow far better than what Darth Sidious had said about him.

“It was when you laughed at my joke on the shuttle, right before we landed. That’s when I realized what was about to happen. That I didn’t want to lose you.” He rolled his shoulders in a casual shrug, and held Hux’s glare. “So do whatever you want with that.”

Once again, Hux’s anger disappeared behind a mask of indifference, and he straightened, erasing any sign of emotion in his body language. He nodded, once, fists bunched at his sides.

“Fuck you, Ren.”

“Look, it’s not like this isn’t hard-”

“When has it ever been hard for you to speak utter nonsense?”

“Okay. Listen. You’re right. And you know me. Hux, _Armitage_, you are the only one who knows me. You know I make bad decisions when I think they’ll benefit me. You know I would do anything to be more powerful, and you know I never consider consequences. Hux. You _know_ all that about me. And you even know that I killed my father for no reason, because I believed Snoke when he told me it would make me more powerful. You’re the only one who knows that.”

Hux sniffed, crossing his arms and looking skeptical. “I’m not the only one. Did the Emperor give you a dressing down?”

“Look, it’s just-” Kylo’s voice rose. He was angry, and his first impulse was to hide how much that had stung. But he let his anger pass, then sighed. “Yeah, all right. He said all that. But really, it’s just you and the Emperor.”

Hux rolled his eyes. “I killed my father too.” His expression changed for a moment, before sliding back to indifference. “Well. I killed Brendol.”

“Yeah, but that’s different than what I did to my dad. You did that for a reason. You actually did benefit from that. You got more power. The Stormtrooper program.”

“No.” Hux’s voice grew more firm, and he stepped close, bringing their faces together once again. Kylo could sense his intensity now, but it wasn’t anger, it was just… Hux’s fanaticism, his passion. “I got control. And a payment owed. The rest of it was incidental.”

Kylo had to look away. “Whatever. The only thing that I got from killing Han Solo was the destruction of Starkiller Base. And continued distraction.”

“True. But you killed Snoke just after. And you benefited greatly.”

Hux sounded unsure. Kylo inclined his head, locking his eyes with Hux again. He hadn’t believed that there would ever be a good moment to admit to regicide, but here they were. “I killed the Supreme Leader. And I did benefit from that. I got control. And a payment owed. The rest of it was… incidental.”

Hux didn’t break eye contact. Kylo could still feel his fanaticism crawling over his skin. The air in the meditation chamber was suddenly stifling, despite the cool night breeze from the hatch. Kylo’s breath quickened.

Hux tipped his head to the side. “Control of the First Order is just incidental?”

Kylo leaned closer. Resisted the urge to grab his waist. “Don’t believe me?”

He could feel Hux breathing heavily too. One breath. Two. He made sure Hux was the one that closed the distance between their mouths, that it was Hux that wanted-

“It doesn’t matter. And neither do you. I’m Sheev Palpatine, aren’t I? I do nothing, I stay here, and I’ll become Emperor of the Galaxy.”

The mood broke, just like that. Kylo looked away. “No. You’ll just be dead. And that’s the truth.” He licked his lips. Kylo didn’t deserve to leave this place with his life, but he wanted to live, and he had to keep asking. Hux had to leave with him. And leaving here without Hux… well. Aside from anything else, he wouldn’t live long if Darth Sidious was hunting him.

“We have to leave. Please, Hux. Don’t you want to live? You’re a survivor. And look, I know this is all my fault, and I’m… just sorry.” Kylo still wasn’t looking at Hux. He hated apologizing, and he knew it wouldn’t sound sincere. But Hux would feel it was the truth, and he continued. “But we can fix it. Together. I can’t do it by myself, you have to help me. You always do. And this time, it’ll be different. This time, and after.”

He was finally able to look back at Hux when he finished. Hux was simply watching him now, expression unreadable, emotions once again shielded. “Why would I leave with you? Why would I do anything with you ever again? You’re the worst kind of traitor, you-”

Hux turned away, walked across the chamber to lean against the wall. Suddenly, his mind was unshielded, and his thoughts almost seemed to reach out to Kylo. Kylo sensed his turmoil, and just how affected he was by everything. How much it had hurt to find out that he truly had no family. He felt that the First Order would reject him if they found out that he was a clone. And Kylo felt how badly his own betrayal had hurt Hux. That what Kylo had said in bed after his return from Arkanis had meant a lot, but it had all been a lie.

Hux turned and scowled at him. He knew Kylo had seen. Slowly, his mind hid itself again, and Kylo was vaguely impressed that he could do it - both the reaching out and shielding himself at will. The latter was perhaps not surprising, given Hux’s nature, but being able to connect like that-

“I trusted you,” Hux said, carelessly, as if it was a fact, as if Armitage Hux ever trusted anyone. As if Hux would ever say that, period.

It was worse than seeing how much the betrayal had hurt. Neither of them trusted lightly. Kylo felt guilt twisting in his stomach, sharp and uncomfortable. It wasn’t an emotion he was used to dealing with. He couldn’t apologize. The apology would be true, but it would be pointless. It wouldn’t fix anything.

“I trust you,” he tried instead, tone equally careless. He knew this meant more than what he’d said earlier. “I still trust you. I told you that when I got back from Arkanis. It was true then, and it's still true now”

He stepped forward, closing the distance between them again. Hux angled his body to face him more fully, but otherwise did not respond. Kylo did not push to find his thoughts, but he kept talking.

“I know you value your own life. I know you, you would never be suicidal. If anything, you’re pointlessly angry that-” Kylo gestured to the meditation chamber, and meant everything, “-all of this has happened to you. The worst of it isn’t even my fault, and you know that. There’s no one for you to kill to fix this. You’ve killed them all already. The only one left who’s responsible is Sheev Palpatine, and he’s not really alive. He can’t be killed. So we need to leave him behind. You value your life, and you value the First Order, and your status in it. All of that is true. That’s you. Whatever happens, that’s all that matters to you.”

Kylo was leaning into Hux’s personal space again, breathing heavily. Hux was still silent, but was at least looking at him with a considered expression. Kylo risked putting his hands on Hux’s shoulders. He filed away the feel of the smooth texture of the fabric below his gloves - velvet with heavy napping, his fingers indenting the black surface. He longed to touch it, and Hux’s warm skin underneath, but refrained.

“What Darth Sidious will do at sunrise, if we don’t leave and stop him, will destroy both you and the First Order. We’ll have the Empire back. Another true thing about you - you believe the Order does good, without exception. That what we do is necessary. But it’s only necessary because the Empire came before and threw everything out of balance. Siphoned all the wealth and resources to the Core Worlds.” He tightened his grip on Hux’s shoulders. “You want to destroy those Core Worlds more than anything. We can do that. We’ll do it together. But we need to walk out of here together and stop what’s happening to you right now.”

Hux’s expression slowly shifted as Kylo finished speaking. “Why can’t you write your own speeches?”

“_Hux_.”

Hux frowned and stepped away from Kylo’s grip, ducking to the side but staying close. “You are correct. I can’t stand to see it all undone. But I will not relinquish my control, or my power. I can do it without you.”

“No. You need me.” Kylo stepped close again. He was so close to convincing Hux. If only Hux weren’t so damn difficult.

Hux took another step backward, smirking now. “And why do I need you?” He put his palms out before him, his sleeves sliding down to bare his pale forearms. Kylo flinched back reflexively, thinking of the Force lightning and how that had looked coming from Hux’s palms.

But nothing happened. Kylo glanced between Hux’s hands and his face, and grew angry when he realized what Hux was doing.

Kylo’s reaction drew a genuine smile from Hux. “Now that I have your powers, what good are you to me?”

That was easy. Kylo smirked, put his own palms out, and pulled Hux into his arms. He quickly wrapped his arms around Hux’s back, freezing him with the Force, stopping his struggles. With Hux in his arms, he could feel his fury. He knew Hux hated to be controlled like this, which made it even better.

“You have no idea of the power and potential open to you in the Force. You are _weak_.” Kylo leaned in, lowering the volume of his voice and murmuring in Hux’s ear. “And you need a teacher.”

He could feel Hux responding, and he loosened his Force hold, though he did not step back or lean away. He felt Hux’s fury melt, felt his resolve crumble, felt his sheer delight in the idea of being as powerful as Kylo.

Kylo turned his head far enough to see Hux’s expression. He was flushed and angry, though Kylo could almost feel his pulse pounding, wanted badly to put his lips on Hux’s neck to feel it.

“I hate you,” Hux said simply, then reached up to grab Kylo’s hair and kiss him, suddenly and very powerfully aroused.

And… it felt good. It felt so _good_ to kiss Hux. Better than before, and more intense. Hux was reaching out for his thoughts again, which was new to Kylo in… this situation. It was incredibly intimate. As Hux’s hot mouth opened wider and his tongue found Kylo’s, Kylo held him tight, squeezing him, holding him closer than he ever had.

It occurred to Kylo that he wanted to protect Hux, something he never wanted to feel again for another person. It was an impulse that went along with the Light that he’d rejected so long ago. And Hux would hate it, he was able to protect himself. He pushed the idea down before Hux somehow saw it, as if Hux could read Kylo’s thoughts. 

But still. Even if it wasn’t to protect Hux, the idea of the two of them walking out of this meditation chamber together and back to the First Order, leaving all this behind and Hux gaining Force sensitivity-

That was. Exciting. The idea of it made Kylo moan into Hux’s mouth, and Hux’s hand in his hair tightened, the other dropping lower, wrapping around his waist. Kylo would finally be the Master, and Hux would be _such_ a student. A great ally in the Force. There was such potential between them, a wonderful future.

It was different than what he’d imagined of resurrecting Darth Sidious. He knew exactly what he and Hux would do, what the two of them would be like together. It was a plan, a sure thing. And it made Kylo happy.

Suddenly, he felt Hux’s thoughts freeze and withdraw from Kylo’s consciousness directly. He felt Hux’s ardor cool, confusion quenching his passion. Hux physically pushed himself back from Kylo, studying his face for several long moments, flush still high on his cheeks and lips slightly reddened.

“I hate making a decision like this in the moment. It requires more thought. You are a traitor several times over, and have very recently tried to kill me. I have also made more than one attempt on your life. You are impulsive and thoughtless, and I should not do this. You’ll only betray me again.”

“And you’ll only stop me again.”

Hux clenched his jaw, looking away, but remaining in Kylo’s arms.

“You’re fucking awful.”

Kylo only shrugged, and leaned in to kiss him again. Hux began to respond slowly, his thoughts and mood shifting in a direction Kylo liked. But suddenly, Hux stiffened in his arms, and a wall came up between them - not the walling off he’d felt before, but an impenetrable barrier.

Kylo felt a crawling sensation on every part of his body as he pulled away from Hux’s lips and met the yellow eyes of Darth Sidious.

Kylo opened his mouth, absolutely fucking horrified to be clutching this monster in his arms. But he didn’t have a chance to make a noise of protest before Darth Sidious threw him into the side of the meditation chamber again. It didn’t hurt, not like it had last time, but Kylo wasn’t thinking of that. He wasn’t thinking of anything. His hope had extinguished along with Hux’s consciousness, and shock had perfectly blanked his thoughts.

He had enough presence of mind to reach for his lightsaber, his entire body acting on reflex to being attacked. He managed to stand on his knees as he activated it, the red light washing through the chamber as he raised his eyes and met the placid expression on Hux’s face, so unlike him. His pale skin and pronounced cheekbones were lit red from below, making him look far more sinister than he had even while firing Starkiller. And the expression wasn’t his, the expression on his face, the one that he’d been kissing, it had been-

“This is why you are such a poor student,” Hux said, in the cultured voice of the Empire. “Your instinct is to fight first, even when there is no fight.” He stepped closer and peered down at Kylo, his hands disappearing in his sleeves as he held his arms in front of him. Kylo should attack him, should cut him down with his lightsaber.

He couldn’t. It was Hux.

“Deception should always be your first instinct. It’s so much more effective.”

Hux’s palms were out again, and Kylo thought about how they’d just been in his hair. They were going to be allies.

Instead, Darth Sidious hit him with Force lightning, and Kylo saw nothing.


	6. Chapter 6

The next time Kylo regained consciousness, he was curled on his side and in an immense amount of pain, but he remembered everything. He remembered enough to keep his eyes closed, to brace himself for the blow that would come when Darth Sidious realized he was awake. He waited for the derisive laugh, for the litany of criticism, for the oppressive sense of Darth Sidious in the Force to press against him. He knew having his eyes closed would make no difference. Darth Sidious would know that he was awake.

What he felt instead was the pressure and slight warmth of someone’s back against his chest. He relaxed slightly, willing his muscles to unclench and his pulse to slow - it had to be Hux, he doubted very much that the Other would seek comfort in this way, especially after what had happened. Tentatively, very tentatively, he pushed his senses outward, trying to feel Hux in the Force.

Hux wasn’t hard to find. He was close, a solid, powerful presence that would have been easy to identify as a Force-sensitive by even the weakest user. As Kylo probed the edges of the sensation, he could feel the ripple of surprise as Hux sensed his interest, then an inexpert probing as Hux felt back along their connection, sensing Kylo’s own awareness and realizing that Kylo was awake, and the briefest thought that Kylo was easy to feel this way.

Hux was a fast student, learning and adapting even here. He would be amazing. He _was_ amazing.

Kylo also knew his weaknesses, and what he wouldn’t let himself have. He didn’t seem to feel a particular way about leaning against Kylo, though Kylo knew he craved touch, even when it was just the two of them in bed. Hux didn’t even seem to be aware that he was doing it, or why, and Kylo hoped it stayed that way. He wrapped himself more fully around Hux, tucking his thighs against Hux’s legs and curling an arm around his waist.

“I thought you were dead,” Hux said into the silence between them, voice a careful neutral.

Kylo didn’t look deeper for how he felt about this, aside from the surface surprise in his thoughts. “Hux. You know what I’m going to say. We have to go. I need your help to leave. I don’t think I can stand.”

Unexpectedly, this elicited a dry, barking laugh from Hux, one that echoed in the empty and chill meditation chamber. Kylo could feel it through his chest. “Ren. I don’t help anyone, you know that.”

“_Hux_, don’t do this asshole thing right now, this is-”

“And I can’t,” Hux continued. He shifted slightly, turning to face him, though still not pulling away from the hold Kylo had around him, either the physical touch or the way Kylo had drawn their thoughts closer. “I’m a clone. I was never meant to be an officer. And I turned out to be a terrible one, with poor judgment. I let you deceive me, and you can’t fool a child.” He laughed again, self-mocking, and Kylo felt the touch of his warm breath against his face. “And I let it happen because I’m weak. I knew what was happening to me, with you, and I let it. I let myself trust you. I deserve to die.”

“You’re taking the galaxy with you.”

“How melodramatic. Sheev Palpatine won’t destroy the galaxy.”

“He’s not going to help it, either. You won’t like what he does.”

“I’ll be dead.”

Kylo exhaled, the sharp motion jostling his injured ribs. He began the process of pushing the pain down, absorbing it, knowing he would need to, one way or another. He opened his eyes, tilting his head to look up into Hux’s face. Hux wasn’t looking at him, his head turned slightly to stare at the wall behind Kylo. “Liking sex doesn’t make you weak, Hux. I know you think it does, and I told you the same thing. But don’t you think we work better together?”

“No, I really don’t. Because here we lie, on the floor of a thirty-year-old escape vessel, all but dead and on the edge of a galactic catastrophe.” He felt Hux’s thoughts turn darker, and Hux covered his face with his hands. “And you know I’m not talking about the sex.”

Kylo closed his eyes again. “You’re stuck on the clone thing. You do know that the troopers were clones of someone else, right? Being a clone of Darth Sidious is better than being Brendol’s son. If you’d asked me if I’d wanted that before today, I’d have said yes.”

“Ren.” Hux’s fingers parted, and Kylo met one of Hux’s green eyes. “You’re the son of a princess and two republic heroes. The grandson of Darth Vader.”

Kylo rolled his shoulders, ignoring the muscle pain that throbbed along with the motion. “You know me.”

Hux covered his eyes again, his chest expanding with an exasperated sigh.

Kylo continued. “Only the fanatic ex-Imperials think that way about clones, Hux. No one else cares. Besides, being a clone of Palpatine gave you considerable Force sensitivity, and an opportunity to save the galaxy by simply leaving here. That seems like something that would interest you.”

Hux said nothing to this, which was less heartening than the ridiculous objections. Kylo could all but feel him give up. He could sense Hux's hopelessness, and how deeply disturbed he was by the whole situation. It pulled at Kylo, creating a painful, pinching weight in his stomach that was unfamiliar. Guilt, and something else - the thing that wasn’t sex that Hux didn’t want to discuss.

Kylo felt pushed past a limit. He should be on edge. What would happen when Darth Sidious appeared again? Would it be dawn? What time was it now? Would this really be the end of his life, lying nearly paralyzed in an Imperial-era derelict ship with half-possessed Hux and a corpse?

But the imminent danger meant nothing to him, when the only way out was with assistance that Hux was unwilling to give. And so, he mostly felt tired.

With effort, he pushed himself up, wincing through the pain as he positioned himself with his legs spread in front of him, pushing his back against Hux’s chest. Hux did not respond. Kylo slouched down further, laying with his head in Hux's lap. After another moment, he looked up and took Hux’s bare hand in his own gloved palm, telling himself it was to facilitate a Force connection.

He tried to think of something else he could say, some magic phrase or logical leap that would make Hux stand, throw his arm around Kylo, and guide them out of the ship and away from danger. He thought again of giving Hux an order that he would follow compulsively. It would work, but Hux would resent him deeply, and the idea made him even more tired. Using the Force to manipulate his mind was even worse. He’d never done that to Hux before, and found the idea unpleasant.

He sighed. He knew that he was no tactician. Hux could probably do this if their situations were reversed, but Kylo could not. So he closed his eyes and adjusted his grip on Hux’s hand, exploring the new sense of Hux in the Force.

It was stronger and more solid, certainly, and unmistakable as power. He felt more like _Hux_, sharp and clear and confident, and less like a standard being. But it was also uneven, as if there were gaps through him, wavering in and out of the background essence of Force. It was unnatural and eerie, and Kylo probed deeper into one of the gaps, curious and forgetting, briefly, what was afflicting Hux.

There was Dark, unambiguous and thick, underlying the core of Hux’s Force power. In a moment, Kylo realized that was likely Darth Sidious’s awareness, lying dormant inside. He recoiled from it, both mentally and physically, jumping slightly and squeezing Hux’s hand.

He could sense Hux’s surface awareness, a stray thought - Kylo was twitchy, and the jump had startled Hux. But Hux squeezed back. In that moment, there were less gaps in Hux’s presence, solidifying as Hux came back to himself, more confident and present.

Kylo frowned, curious, taking a moment to consider what that meant.

“Tell me about the Stormtrooper program,” he mumbled, closing his eyes and concentrating.

“What about it? I tell you about the program nearly every day. You rarely listen.”

“Yeah, well. I’m listening now.”

Hux shifted. “It’s pointless now. And besides, you don’t care.”

“I care.”

“Please.”

Kylo exhaled. “Am I lying?”

Kylo could feel suspicion shift across the surface of Hux’s thoughts. “Not… entirely. But you aren’t being honest about something.”

Kylo flexed his jaw. “I care about you. And the Stormtrooper program is yours. I want to hear why you’re so proud of it.”

The admission sat in the silence between them, thick and unwelcome. Hux’s pulse increased, and his surface thoughts were twisted with discomfort.

“Am I lying?” Kylo asked again, more annoyed now.

“You never cared before,” Hux shot back, obviously evading.

“Well. Maybe what I cared about before didn’t work out.” When Hux was silent, Kylo pressed. “Tell me about the stars-damned troopers, and why you love that program so much.”

Hux hesitated again, but his discomfort eased. “You want to hear about how I developed the training program?”

Kylo tried to get more comfortable. He sat up again, wrapping an arm around Hux, and though it was painful, he drug Hux to the wall. Kylo leaned against it, more relaxed, and Hux sat next to him. He pressed his side to Kylo’s, and kept his grip on his hand.

“Yes,” Kylo replied after a moment, closing his eyes again. “Tell me about that.”

So Hux told him. He told Kylo how he’d made changes to the program while his father lived, and how his father had taken credit for his work and rejected his more progressive ideas. He talked about how the program flourished after his father’s death. Kylo didn’t have to use the Force to know how proud Hux was of all of it, how interested and personally vested he was in the program’s success, and even how he believed that he was making the trooper’s lives better because of it. On a different day, Kylo would have argued that point, but for now he let Hux speak.

As Hux went on, his words washing over Kylo, Kylo probed at his presence in the Force. As Hux warmed to the subject, the sense of Hux’s awareness grew stronger, and the odd gaps in his awareness disappeared. Kylo probed one of the still-present gaps, holding it open as he examined the depths.

The Dark was still there, still under the surface. Sheev Palpatine was dormant. But it was… less. The Dark was diminished, less overpowering.

The implications of that seemed impossible. Was… was Hux forcing Darth Sidious back? Was Darth Sidious somehow not noticing?

Kylo leaned forward, opening his eyes and turning to Hux, staring at him with interest. Hux trailed off, his brows drawing down in confusion.

Maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe Darth Sidious knew that.

But still. It was something.

“Were you even listening?” Hux asked, covering his confusion with annoyance.

“I heard what I wanted,” Kylo replied, dropping Hux’s hand to reposition himself on the floor.

“You always do,” Hux grumbled.

“How much can you sense of me in the Force?”

Hux looked away. “It feels as though you’re pressing against me, somehow. And-” he turned back, frowning, tapping the side of his head. “I felt… pressure. Concentrated. A single point of it. Were you reading my mind?”

“Not your mind.” Kylo crossed his legs and sat facing Hux, pain nearly forgotten. He braced his palms on his thighs. Hux was also sitting cross-legged, the rich black robe gathered in his lap, what was visible of his boots still reflecting the low light. Their knees were nearly touching, and Hux had leaned away from the wall, closer to Kylo. “Just you. It felt more like you.”

“Shouldn’t it?”

“It’s not-” Kylo waved the question away. “It’s not that easy. But you feel more like yourself now. And, I was trying to sense where… you know.”

“I don’t know!” Hux answered, frustrated, leaning back against the wall. “Explain, for once in your life.”

Kylo grinned, sensing the gaps in Hux’s awareness disappearing once again. Apparently his ongoing frustrations with Kylo were also an inherent part of what made Hux himself. “I need to know where your awareness stops and Sheev Palpatine’s begins.”

Hux looked skeptical, but Kylo could sense his interest. “Why would that matter?”

“I don’t know.” Kylo shook his head. There was only one true answer to this, and Hux wouldn’t like it. “But I think it does.”

“I told you-”

“Shut up,” Kylo said sharply, putting a palm up between them. Improbably, Hux did, but likely only because he wasn’t expecting Kylo to give the order so suddenly. His expression grew murderous, his face flushed, and Kylo could sense his churning indignation.

Anger. Good. Kylo could work with anger. He felt his stomach tighten again, not guilt this time, but the other, the part of him that truly wanted to be the one who knew Hux well enough to save their lives. Hope surged where there hadn’t been any before. He frantically searched his thoughts, trying to come up with something he could use now. The anger made Hux’s presence even more solid. But what else would? What was Hux, at the core of his being?

Kylo grinned again. Hux was a desperate fanatic, always searching for power and advantage.

Hux remained silent and angry, but also curious about whatever Kylo was doing. There was low-level self-hatred, but directed at his newfound interest in and ignorance about the Force. He was annoyed that he hadn't paid more attention to Kylo over the years, thinking it would have made him better at using his new abilities. He had temporarily forgotten about being a clone.

Kylo inhaled and began, hoping he could do this. Hoping he knew Hux, and that it would be right.

“Your goal. With the training programs, the Order, and everything else. It’s to bring peace to the galaxy, right?”

“Peace?” Hux was incredulous for a moment, but as Kylo expected, it was a topic that he was interested in. His former apathy and disinterest all but vanished as Hux grew distracted, his mind working on this new topic. “No. I want order. We won’t see peace in our lifetime. War will need to happen first, and that’s what all the training is meant for. We need war, and we need to win.”

Even better, Kylo hadn’t considered how much Hux liked to feel superior. He’d heard Hux rant about peace more than once. He believed that peace was unattainable, and that relying on it had been the main failing of the New Republic government. Kylo suppressed another smirk and continued.

“But all the war, it’s for order. And that will benefit the entire galaxy in the end, yes? Once there’s order?”

“Eventually, I suppose.” Hux seemed wary, clearly not sure where Kylo was going with all this. “But order will always need to be enforced, with war and power. Order fails when it is not supported or defended.”

“Right. And the order, what you want in the end, is equality. Your campaign against the core worlds, and want to forcibly share their wealth with everyone, with no advantage in production or trade? You want to give to those who need it. You want balance.”

“Of course,” Hux agreed, still wary. “Why are you asking?”

His hesitance caused more of the gaps to appear in his Force presence. Kylo’s awareness latched onto one, holding it in place. Hux winced visibly, and Kylo waved his hand between them again, dismissing it.

“Don’t worry about that,” he ordered, more loudly than intended. Curiously, Hux managed to stop his curiosity in its tracks, his mouth drawing into a line. Kylo nodded, eyes intently on Hux, and he offered his hands to him, palm up. “Just… tell me what you think, okay? Consider what I’m asking you very carefully. It’s helping. Tell me how you’ll enforce your order and equality.”

“Okay. Yes,” Hux said, nodding. Kylo was briefly surprised when Hux again did just as he was asked. He slid his dry palms into Kylo’s waiting hands as if it was the most natural thing they could do. His wariness and concern vanished, and his thoughts focused laser-sharp on what Kylo had said. Kylo knew the explanation would come to Hux as easily as breathing. “We’ve been making progress, both toward the core systems and expanding further into the Outer Rim and Wild Space. Every new system helps the others. The Hosnian system was a sacrifice, a necessary one, and one that worked. Its value is incalculable. All the progress we make into the mid-rim, every system that surrenders after knowing what we’re capable of, it permits us to find others, gives us the resources we need to support the systems that need it. We build their resources into our network. Food, materials. Colonists. People we can train for our program. Protection for trade routes, from insurgents. People we can educate with skills to better their lives. We’ve done so much already, and so much more since the firing of Starkiller.”

Hux continued, as Kylo knew he would. His presence in the Force was growing even more firm. The holes were disappearing much faster now. Through the point where he’d entered Hux’s awareness, Kylo could feel the sense of Darth Sidious diminishing further still. Kylo squeezed Hux’s hands to encourage him. Maybe this wouldn’t work in the end. Maybe Darth Sidious knew something - a lot of somethings - that Kylo did not.

But. Maybe Sheev was conserving his strength, and wasn’t aware of what they were doing. Maybe if Hux was as much himself as he could be, that would be enough. There wouldn’t be room for Sheev Palpatine, and they could use the Force to push him out. Maybe this would work.

Or, maybe they would both die. But they would do it like this, without Hux’s apathy, and they would do it together.

Kylo’s gaze left Hux’s face for just a moment, turning his head to glance out the open hatch to the dense forest outside. His grip on Hux’s hands tightened. The cacophonous sound of night creatures was beginning to still. He could feel the faint touch of a warm breeze on his face, and could see the dark beginning to gray outside.

If this was going to work, it had to be soon. He had no idea when sunrise would occur, but he knew they didn’t have much time.

Hux stopped talking, and Kylo’s eyes snapped back to his face, encouraged and more intent now. Fanatical, in his own way. He bore down on Hux’s presence in the Force, willing it stronger, willing it to be more powerful. Willing himself inside, so he could help. 

Hux winced, and Kylo asked again, overriding his curiosity and hesitance. “You believe in what you do. What _we_ do. You take those people from the poorest worlds, their children and their most hopeless, and you put them in your army. You give them education, training, and jobs. You make them your officers, your soldiers, your diplomats and scientists and engineers. You do all of that.”

“Of course.” One hundred percent conviction. Hux was confident. “That is the First Order, and that is what gives us the power to act. Everyone involved believes in our cause.”

Kylo forced himself not to reply with his usual sarcasm, to hide his fundamental disbelief from Hux. Hux was delusional, believing that everyone loved the First Order as much as he did. But Kylo’s negation wouldn’t have mattered. Hux’s confidence, arrogance, and certainty was a brightness in the Force, one that Kylo pressed into harder, savoring it. Doubt, apathy, and disappointment had vanished completely, and there was only _Armitage Hux_ left.

Where Kylo had awkwardly forced himself down into the center Hux’s awareness, he suddenly felt a stirring in the Darkness of Darth Sidious, smaller and much diminished now. Kylo instinctively recoiled, losing his grip on that core of Dark. But he didn’t need to look carefully to feel the ripples from Darth Sidious, pushing through the strength of Hux’s presence and trying once again to break through to the surface.

There weren’t any gaps for him to push through. Kylo clamped down frantically again, cursing aloud. He was sweating now, his physical pain nearly forgotten, and he closed his eyes.

“Let me in. Please, Hux, you have to let me in, we need to suppress it.”

“Suppress what,” Hux asked, instantly wary again. “I don’t know what you mean, what are you-”

“Don’t worry,” Kylo snapped loudly, eyes open again, sensing Hux’s resolve wavering. “You need to keep going. Don’t think about what I’m doing. Be yourself. Be confident that what you’re doing right now is right.”

“What does that even mean?! What am I doing correctly right now? I’m not who I thought I was, and I can-” Hux paused, swallowed, and Kylo could feel the surge of darkness within him that was pushing steadily and painfully to the surface. He could feel it happening, could feel the strength they’d built diminishing. His body tingled with the remembrance of Force lightning. 

“I can feel it.” Hux’s voice was higher now, his face white. His hands had tightened on Kylo’s.

“So can I,” Kylo all but shouted, leaning forward, losing the control he had over his own emotions and cursing himself. Hux needed Kylo’s certainty right now as much as he needed his own. But Kylo needed to stop Darth Sidious’s progress before he tried forcing his own awareness into Hux again, tried to hold him together from the outside, to keep the holes from reappearing. But Hux’s awareness wasn’t absorbing him, as all the others did when Kylo forced his way into their minds. Kylo’s presence only seemed to make Darth Sidious stronger. He could feel the Dark sucking at him, and he pulled back abruptly.

It didn’t make any sense. He could do this in his sleep, and it shouldn’t be any different now, he _needed it_-

He concentrated, sweating now, straining and trying to hold Hux from outside his consciousness, but something wasn’t right. “It’s Dark, Hux, and it isn’t you, you need-”

Kylo’s eyes widened in realization, and his mouth opened in astonishment. It hadn’t occurred to him, he didn’t realize-

Hux’s awareness, the sense of him in the Force. All of that confidence, his arrogance, his fucking logic and surety, it was Light. It didn’t make sense, but Kylo had felt it, had wrapped himself around it without thinking.

Kylo could have wept.

“Balance, Hux. You need order. We need to balance you, we need it quickly.”

“_Ren_-”

Hux had no idea what Kylo was taking about. Kylo rushed on, doing the best he could to explain. “The Order, the First Order, it’s yours. The troopers, the officers, High Command, me. No one understands it like you. I’m the Supreme Leader, and others can make decisions, but it’s yours. It was one of the reasons you slept with me, so you could make certain of that.”

Kylo had only vaguely considered this before, but saying it aloud gave him certainty, and he was pressed close enough to Hux’s mind to see that it was true. Hux wasn’t embarrassed or ashamed of it. He seemed to respond to the truth of it, angrily scrambling for the logic of what Kylo was doing, where he could possibly be going with this right now.

“It is mine,” Hux snapped. “And I will guide it into the future.”

“You will,” Kylo answered with certainty, realizing all at once that they could do this, that they were in a unique position to succeed. They could definitely solve this particular problem, under these particular circumstances. Kylo, and Hux, who both know each other better than they would ever admit. “But you have to answer me honestly, Hux. You have to believe your answers, and you have to feel it resonate.”

“I-”

“Don’t think,” Kylo snapped. “That won’t help. You understand what I mean, you felt it just now. Don’t think, just feel.” He squeezed Hux’s hands brutally hard, yanking their bodies closer together. Their faces were centimeters apart. Hux still had that stupid hairstyle that didn’t suit him at all, combed back into place after his previous agitation, and it smelled strange. But underneath it was the sweet smell of Hux’s sweat, which Kylo knew so intimately. Kylo’s eyes darted down to Hux’s mouth, then back up to his eyes.

“You believe in order.”

Hux clenched his jaw, and nodded. “Yes, absolutely.”

Kylo felt a twinge, the answer resonating, and pulled against it as hard as he possibly could, trying to draw Hux’s attention. “Do you feel that?”

“Yes,” Hux said, wincing and frowning, but his thoughts smoothed over, his confidence returned. He understood what Kylo had shown him, what sensation to focus on. He nodded, and Kylo continued.

“Along with order. You want galactic harmony. Symbiosis, each world benefiting others.”

“Yes, but I wouldn’t-”

“And you know that, after you die, the First Order will continue without you, that you’re giving it purpose and the means to exist into the future?”

“Do you mean as the Emperor did?” Hux’s conviction wavered again. He didn’t understand. “You mean that the Emperor is back now, and plans on-”

“Forget that,” Kylo all but shouted into his face, gripping his hands tightly again. “Focus on what I’m telling you, and that feeling I showed you. If you die, will the First Order continue without you, and be the best way to run the galaxy?”

“Yes,” Hux said again, more sure. “It is the most efficiency that living beings can accomplish, and once I’ve attained my goals, everyone will see that. That’s the point.”

“It won’t die with you.”

“No.” Hux was very firm about this. “There would be no point.”

“Yes,” Kylo said, equally firm, closing his eyes and concentrating. His own confidence, his realization that this could work, _was_ working, resonated with Hux’s confidence. “There is no death, there is only the Force.”

“The Force has nothing-”

“The Force is in all things,” Kylo replied automatically, “And you will see that, with time.” Hux was himself again, powerful and solid in the Force, and no longer needed Kylo pushing against the edges of his presence. 

Hux’s presence, incredibly, was Light. For how arrogant and certain he was, his core beliefs were Light, and a near-match for what the Jedi had once believed. _There is no emotion, there is only peace. There is no ignorance, only knowledge. There is no passion, there is serenity. There is no chaos, there is harmony. There is no death, there is only the Force._

For all that Hux was a fascist that lacked empathy and was currently staging a hostile takeover on a galactic scale, he truly believed that what he was doing was for the greater good, and had very few personal motives outside revenge and furthering balance in the galaxy. His desire to spread order, to bring resources and education and training to every system, and the way he was driven beyond selflessness and by the desire for a long-lasting Order, all of it was Light. Kylo could nearly laugh, that Snoke’s rabid cur was a creature so strongly aligned with the order and selflessness inherent in the Light. 

He was the exact opposite of Snoke and Kylo. And even Sheev Palpatine, who Kylo was beginning to understand was selfishness incarnate, in a way that the Dark side fed and loved.

Kylo didn’t pull back from Hux’s awareness, despite its new strength and the way it drew Light to itself. He could still sense Darth Sidious struggling from within, more forceful now, nearly savage, attempting to tear Hux apart from the inside. It was a sensation Kylo knew well. Darth Sidious was powerful enough, Dark enough, that if they simply stopped now, he would win. Hux would die, and Kylo would likely follow him, if not this dawn, then the next.

But the two of them together might be able to stop him. They could force Darth Sidious out of Hux’s awareness and save their lives. Kylo concentrated, pulling gently, trying to guide the flow between them and establish a connection that was more than Kylo pushing from the outside and Darth Sidious pushing from within.

It was a skill he hadn’t used in years, learned long ago and nearly forgotten. He hadn’t needed it, had killed or defended himself against all the Force users he’d met for so long. But he could still do it, and the Force flowed between them, faint but there.

“Do you feel it,” he asked on an exhale. His eyes were still closed, and he could feel Hux’s breath against his face and lips, and tried to ignore it. The physical did not currently matter, and he needed to focus. “Do you feel the connection between us? Do you feel us sharing the Force?”

He couldn’t pull against the connection to make it more present, more real. Too much pulling from him would unbalance and snap it. He had to trust Hux. He held his breath, and exhaled shakily again as he felt Hux relaxing, sensing it, his curiosity growing. 

“Yes,” he replied, sounding interested, his awareness sharpening again as his thoughts ran over and over the connection. His interest pulled the connection toward him, and Kylo strengthened his own side of it, balancing it again, making it stronger.

“You feel yourself. The sense of you is part of the connection. Feel that, feel what you are in the Force. Consider the feeling, and ask yourself: Do you feel Another, deep within, struggling to be free?”

A thread of fear. Kylo grasped it, pulling it to himself, drawing it away from the brightness of Hux’s awareness, from his Light. He could feel Hux sensing this too, and relaxing.

“I feel it.”

“Good,” Kylo’s pulse was beginning to race, but so far, his idea was working. Hux needed to sense all of this, and he struggled to keep his voice as level and reassuring as he could. “You have to trust me. You have to believe. You have to feel it.”

Hux hesitated for only a moment. Kylo could sense it was the trust. Kylo hadn’t earned it, and knew that there was no reason for Hux to give it, other than to save his life. 

Still, Hux consented. Kylo sensed that he could do nothing else. “Okay,” he murmured. “Yes.”

“Push,” Kylo spoke firmly, making it an order. “Push against the Other, that thing that’s trying to get out and take your mind and body. It's an unnatural abomination, a crime against life and the Force, and should be very clear now.”

Hux couldn’t resist an order, and he did just as Kylo asked. Kylo was surprised by how hard Hux was able to push back, untrained as he was. But he was certain, and Kylo could sense that he knew exactly what Kylo was trying to make him understand. Kylo felt Darth Sidious recede, but fury resonated in response to being pushed back, and his efforts redoubled. He drew Hux’s fear away again, pushing against the outside of Hux’s awareness as hard as he could.

“I feel it. I can do it,” Hux responded, wonder in his voice. “I can hold it back.”

“Holding him isn’t good enough,” Kylo said firmly. “We need to push him out.”

“I do. We do. You… need to help me?” Hux asked, making the statement a question. Kylo could feel the query, could feel Hux sensing Kylo’s presence through their new connection.

“Yes,” Kylo murmured, “But I can only do it if we work together. If you understand my power.”

Hux’s confidence wavered, and there was anger. Kylo quickly drew the anger away and into his own awareness, to feed himself and strengthen the Light in Hux. But the moment of uncertainty caused Hux to lose ground, and Darth Sidious began to push back harder. 

It made Hux less confident, caused him to waver yet again. Kylo had to clench his jaw to stop himself from losing his own temper or pulling on their connection in fury hard enough to break it.

“I can’t,” Hux replied, quieter now. “I don’t know-”

“You do.” Kylo opened his eyes, locking his own firm gaze with Hux’s more desperate one. “You know balance, Hux. You also know my power, and what I’m capable of. And you know me as well as I know myself, and as well as I know you.”

Hux’s confidence returned, along with more anger. Kylo fed on it, delighted. Of course this would make Hux angry. They were opposites in all possible ways, and the synchronicity of it in the moment was heady. “I don’t need this philosophical bantha shit. I need real instruction. I need you to tell me what to do. I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

Hux was all but shouting now, but he was more himself than ever. Kylo kept his eyes glued to Hux’s furious stare, feeding on his anger.

“You hate me!”

“I don’t hate you!” Still very confident. Hux’s anger diminished unexpectedly, and Kylo grunted in frustration.

“Shut up and listen!” That made Hux angry again, and Kylo drew on it and continued. “You know me, and you know yourself. Your beliefs are unshakable. You’ve dedicated your life to them - order, equality, opportunity. You would give your life, if it meant the First Order succeeded.”

Hux said nothing to that. Kylo could read his thoughts plainly - that other people’s lives were perhaps better sacrifices than Hux’s own, and Hux believed that surviving was, above all else, how he could reach his goals.

“I’m not asking you to give your own life, and we are surviving, I swear it. We will walk away.” It was common ground, not what Kylo was going for, but it worked, and he felt Hux opening up, letting him in. They were beginning to resonate, their connection growing to the point where Kylo could almost touch Darth Sidious himself, could almost push against him, his strength combined with Hux’s, working together rather than Kylo pushing from outside.

“Yes. We will succeed and return to the First Order,” Hux agreed with him, falling more into himself. It helped.

“But it is your Order, Hux. You know me. You know that I’m selfish, and my power is selfish. You know I don’t agree with all of your directives. I don’t really believe in it, not the way you do. I want it to be mine, and I want to belong. But I don’t. I never have.”

He could feel Hux’s anger. He could also feel Hux believing the truth of that, deep down to the core of his being. Kylo seized it, feeding his conviction, feeding his power.

“Yes,” Kylo murmured. “You know I’ll do anything to serve my own strength, to further my own power. To win. I’m selfish. That’s what brought us here.”

“Yes.”

“Yes,” Kylo agreed again. “You know me better than anyone. You know I want to be free, from my masters, from the Jedi, from my past. From everything. I want it. I don’t know how to get it.”

_Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall set me free._

Kylo didn't believe in Sith doctrine, not really. And yet, the truth of the Dark resonated deeply in him. He was its creature, always.

He felt something else from Hux then, realization. Kylo opened his eyes, and found a stricken look on Hux’s face. Hux shook his head, and felt sudden pity and understanding, the reality of it souring between them. 

“Yes, of course,” Hux began, giving some sort of awful voice to the thought. “But you-”

“It doesn’t matter,” Kylo snapped, angry that Hux would pity him, using it to feed their connection. They were so close. Kylo could feel an approaching tipping point. Their awarenesses were very nearly harmonized, so close to working together as one. From the corner of his eye, Kylo could see the hatch and the forest beyond light with sunrise, and he could feel the savage strength of Darth Sidious fighting back harder than ever, the pain reverberating through both of them, the Sith clawing his way through Hux with the intention of destroying them both at once.

He pushed, and Hux pushed with him. The Dark, that presence that was so unlike Hux’s Light, pushed back. Kylo could feel it protest, could feel the rage of the presence as an ache in his teeth. He knew Hux could feel it, too. 

“So close, we’re close,” Kylo said, still shouting, feeling his blood roar in his ears. “Do you understand, Hux? Do you know me? Can you feel it?”

Hux blinked at him. “You keep asking that, Supreme Leader. Of course I know you.” Kylo could feel him reaching out, could feel the sense of him in the Force sinking into Kylo, going deep inside him, where Kylo had never let anyone go before.

Kylo tensed, then let it happen. There was a _snap_ that felt both physical and not, and suddenly, they were together.

Hux smirked. “It’s easy.”

Kylo’s pulse spiked even higher, and he felt Hux’s confidence in his awareness. Hux was the one that leaned in to kiss him, and Kylo closed his eyes.

He _pushed_. Hux followed him, _was_ him. They were balanced, the Light and Dark of them.

And it was that balance that forced Darth Sidious from their shared consciousness, extinguished like the flame of a candle. 

Strangely, Hux continued to kiss Kylo, their fingers twined together, their thoughts equally incredulous and disbelieving that this had happened to them.

A breeze blew through the open hatch, and an avian called out in the jungle, the sound echoing through the pod. The sun rose. Their eyes remained closed, their thoughts and bodies close, and they lived to see another day.


	7. Chapter 7

“Stop it,” Ren ordered sharply. Hux jerked back to himself, startled. In the moment it took him to collect his thoughts, Ren continued, amused. “Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve had to tell someone to stop bothering wildlife?”

They had been walking in silence throughout the morning. Hux had managed to locate his datapad, and used the mapping function to direct them back to headquarters. They were finally out of the dense forest and walking through the tall grass of the field, the sun rising at their backs, the air growing warmer. The pieces of salvage from the second Death Star were growing larger and closer together as they drew closer to the coast, though they still hadn’t encountered any First Order crews.

As Ren had predicted, there were several comms waiting on the emergency frequency, all triggered when Hux had failed to report in the previous evening. There were several search parties scanning the area, which Hux cancelled upon reestablishing contact with the First Order. He sent orders to await the return of himself and the Supreme Leader. The thought of usurpation nagged at the back of his mind, but he thought twelve standard hours out of contact was not enough of a window for any of his rivals to have made a move. He wouldn’t be satisfied until he reached the base and could access more than the short-wave local comms, however.

The normalcy of the morning - the walk through the field, and even his background fear for the Order - was grounding, especially after everything that had happened in those twelve hours. So much was different now. He was forced to admit that the changes were all to do with him.

Ren was holding his hand, allegedly to make it easier to guide him in his Force explorations. Hux was finding his proprietary intrusions into his thoughts annoying. Ren had removed his gloves, and their palms were damp. Hux wondered if the contact was strictly necessary.

“It’s not. I could probably do it without.”

Hux turned to glare at him. “If I had known I was inviting you into my thoughts forever, I would have reconsidered what we did in that escape vessel.”

Ren rolled his eyes. “Really? You’d rather die than have me know you thought a bird was interesting?”

“Yes,” Hux answered irritably, feeling the lie resonate between them. More annoyed, he asked “Is there really no way to undo this?”

“There is, but you’re the one doing it. You have to learn to stop reaching out to me.”

Hux sighed. He sensed that the answer wasn’t the entire truth, but didn’t press. The thought that he was somehow unconsciously reaching out for Ren in the Force was embarrassing.

“Why? After everything else?”

“If you don’t stop responding to questions I’m not asking, I’m going to leave you in the forest to learn if proximity makes this easier.”

Whatever they had done together, defeating Sheev Palpatine or whatever it was that Ren had insisted happened, had given Ren a great deal of smug confidence that was entirely unnecessary. It was especially difficult to deal with on top of everything else.

“That was nothing to be proud of,” he said aloud, knowing that Ren would hear his thoughts anyway.

“What? Defeating Darth Sidious? I think it is.” He held up his free had in front of him. “Snoke. Luke Skywalker. Sheev Palpatine. I’m three for three.”

“Those fights were all your fault,” Hux bit out sharply. “Luke Skywalker vanished, you did not defeat him. And the last one almost got us killed.”

“So did Snoke.”

“That almost got you killed, not me.”

“You did almost die.”

Hux turned to glare at him, remembering Ren’s attack in Snoke’s throne room. Ren raised a brow at Hux, then faced forward and continued. “Besides. Darth Sidious didn’t kill you. You’re still alive. And you gained Force sensitivity. Sounds like a good night.”

There was a hint of affection tinging the thought. The Force powers were as attractive to Ren as they were to Hux. Hux felt himself flush, and spoke quickly to cover his reaction.

“You just listed three powerful Force users you’ve killed, one of whom I was cloned from. You, who once insisted that your official title was _Jedi Killer_. Why would I believe that using the Force around you is a good thing?”

“Because it is,” Ren said simply. “I’ll train you. I won’t have a master any more.”

“You’ll be mine.” Hux was quiet for a moment. “You do know that I have a similar problem with superiors that I find lacking.”

“A _similar problem_,” Ren mimicked, using Hux’s accent.

“A one hundred percent mortality rate.”

Ren only grunted in response. Hux could still only sense the smugness from him.

“I’ve tried to kill you.”

“You tried,” Ren said dismissively.

“I nearly did, today.”

“That wasn’t you,” Ren said quickly, and Hux felt, very distinctively, a spike of discomfort from Ren.

“It was. It was me the whole time, like it or not.”

“It wasn’t,” Ren insisted, his voice rising. He began glancing between the pieces of wreckage, agitated, and started walking faster, pulling Hux behind him.

Hux was exasperated, and struggled not to trip over the tall grass that was wrapping around his boots, still dew-slick from the dawn. “I know you don’t think you’re lying, but everything about last night was me, because I-”

“Shut up,” Ren snapped, pulling him toward one of the larger pieces of wreckage.

“I know you don’t want to hear-”

“I don’t.” They reached a large, surprisingly intact portion of the second Death Star, a piece of deck plating and outer hull arching hundreds of meters into the air. Ren stopped to study it, and Hux watched him, less subtly than he had in the past. His expression was stormy, his hair a mess, and he smelled of sour sweat. They both smelled bad, after what had happened. The sun had risen higher, and it highlighted Ren’s pale skin and lit his messy hair to dark brown. His profile stood out sharply - nose and chin, his dark brows low over his eyes, his skin looking so pale under the sunlight, causing the moles and the scar that bisected his face to stand out.

Ren turned to look at him, his expression softening for a moment, unguarded in a way that Ren had never allowed before. The light made his eyes a lighter brown, and Hux noticed for the first time how long his lashes were. Part of him knew Ren could see and know how he was being appreciated. Hux could only hold his gaze, struck silent in the moment.

Ren was the one that spoke first, swallowing and licking his lips. Hux’s eyes followed the line of his throat, then his pink tongue along those lips, which he’d certainly appreciated before.

“We need to stop here for a minute.”

Hux frowned, pushing everything down. “We need to get back. We’ve been gone a full cycle, and we both need to rest.”

Ren’s lips thinned, but rather than responding, he turned, dropping Hux’s hand and pulling himself up and inside the wreckage.

“Hey!” Hux shouted, shuffling to look up inside the derelict, seeing a long, dark, and ominous hallway stretching vertically above him, incongruous in the grassy field of Endor’s Moon. It was out of time, out of place. It should not have existed. It was too dark inside to spot Ren, even though he’d disappeared only moments before.

“What are you doing? Haven’t you had enough of crawling around this thing?”

At first, there was no response, only the echo of Hux's voice and the sounds of Ren’s hands and feet inside. Then there was a wrenching noise, followed by the sound of dust and small debris sifting and pattering against durasteel. Hux took a step back, not wishing to look any more disheveled - he’d needed to keep Palpatine’s robe, his uniform had been soiled beyond recovery. Ren told him he’d dug the escape vessel out of jungle foliage, which was difficult to believe. 

Then, Hux felt the hairs on his arms and neck stand up, and the sensations around him _shifted_ and _pulled_ and he was drifting up and inside the Death Star. After he recovered from the surprise of flying through the air, he marveled at the sensation itself, even as he hated it - it was Ren’s Force, but he’d felt Ren’s Force before. It had been a blunt weapon, something to bludgeon and tighten. Now, Hux could feel it more intimately, understand it, and it distracted him from Ren’s infuriating assumption that Hux would want to be grabbed by the Force and drawn into a wrecked spacecraft like a scrapper.

He moved quickly through the darkness and into an open chamber. He was gently released to stand next to Ren, who was looking up. The sun was shining through a transparisteel viewport that formed one wall of the chamber, currently directly above them. The viewport was scummed over with white minerals and the dinginess of dust and dirt that had settled outside over the years, but there was still enough light to see that the large space had been a private berth, complete with ‘fresher and a bed still made to military precision. 

It was eerie. The sparseness of the chambers lending it the appearance as if the officer had only stepped out for the day, thirty years ago. Dust motes drifted through the beams of sunlight cutting through the viewport. The way the Death Star segment was oriented, Hux and Ren were standing on the wall with the doorway next to Hux’s feet, the original floor and ceiling of the room forming the left and right walls, and the viewport the ceiling. The bed hung above them on the now-wall, bolted securely to the former floor.

As Hux stared up, contemplating the moment caught in time, Ren grabbed him, kissing him deeply and pressing him against the former floor of the room. The kiss was good. If Hux were honest with himself, kissing Ren was always good. He grunted as he realized Ren would see the thought clearly. But it took another moment; a moment full of Ren’s big hands folding around his shoulders, his fingers pressing into the soft material of the unfamiliar tunic Hux wore, his big chest crowding against Hux’s, and his thigh pushing proprietarily between his own legs, before Hux sensed that the thoughts went both ways. He could clearly sense Ren’s pleasure at feeling Hux under him and in his thoughts. He could feel Ren's arousal, his giddy relief, and a possessive _mine mine mine_ that punched the air from Hux’s lungs.

At that, Ren pulled away, gaze intent. His gaze was always so direct and serious, able to pin Hux in place even before they’d started all this. If Ren could learn to control his expression, he would never need the mask.

“Look. Palpatine. What he did. It wasn’t you. He’s not you. You know that, right?”

At this odd pronouncement, Hux saw a more distinct memory from Ren - Ren kissing Hux, then pulling back to realize it was Sheev Palpatine. Hux frowned.

“Not liking that you kissed him doesn’t make it true. I’m his vessel. That’s all I’ve ever been.”

Ren shook his head again, expression still earnest. “You aren’t listening to me. You don’t understand. You’re the same person you were yesterday. The same as you’ve always been. It’s simple. Forget about the rest of it. You can walk away from what happened today as Armitage Hux, but with Force sensitivity.”

Ren’s dogged insistence on this point frustrated Hux. “It can’t be. Everything I did before this-” He stopped, clenching his jaw, not really caring to explain to Kylo Ren, who was also the same insensitive person he’d been the day before. Despite himself, more of his insecurities tumbled from his mouth, unbidden. “I’ve always wondered about my mother. And of course, I didn’t have one. And my father wasn’t my father-”

“He was.” Ren’s temper was even, and his words did not ring false in the Force. He wasn’t lying. He shrugged, sensing Hux’s scrutiny, his dark eyes still eerily intent. “He was your father. He raised you and made you a person, along with the First Order. And what if you had been born from one of his lovers? It wouldn’t have changed anything.”

“He wouldn’t have kept me alive,” Hux said bitterly.

Ren shrugged. “He’s still just as dead.”

“But it’s humiliating!” Hux shouted, letting his emotions get away from him, hating himself for losing control. He tried to push Ren away, but Ren’s hands held him still. “The old Imperials would have known! Every single one of them! The way they treated me, I thought it was because Brendol-”

“It was,” Ren said sharply, frowning slightly, but still so calm. If Hux had been himself, it would have been almost funny, the contrast between Hux losing control of himself and Ren remaining calm. “Do you think they would have had anything to do with the Emperor’s heir otherwise? One who was to be the Emperor himself? They wouldn’t have touched you. No one knows where you came from, Hux. Only Brendol and Rax knew, and they’re both dead. Now it’s just you and I.”

“You can’t just pretend none of this matters!”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m a fucking _clone_-”

Ren kissed him again, harder, Hux’s head slamming back into durasteel plating. He could feel everything - Ren’s annoyance, his belief that the conversation was pointless, that seeing Hux so angry turned him on.

“Don’t be such a bigot, Hux,” he eventually murmured, pulling back from Hux’s mouth. “There were still a few old clone troopers around when I was a kid. They were all just people.”

“Easy for you to say,” Hux bit out. “You are a prince of Alderaan and a member of the Elder Houses.”

Ren grinned. “And I overcame those significant setbacks to become Supreme Leader of the First Order.”

“You’re insufferable,” Hux bit out, struggling against his shoulders. Ren’s grin widened, and he pushed Hux more firmly against the wall.

“Stay a moment,” Ren murmured, leaning in close again, his lips at the corner of Hux’s mouth. “Let me rest here with you. I need it before I go back to being Supreme Leader.”

“Rest,” Hux repeated in a mocking tone. “You can do that much better in a furnished berth than in a piece of wreckage in a field. And what makes you think I need it, too?”

Ren’s mouth wandered further back, his lips dragging along the morning stubble on Hux’s cheek. When he spoke, his voice was downright menacing, his breath hot against Hux’s ear. Hux shivered.

“I can see it, Hux. What you need.”

And it was true. Having Ren like this, pressed so close against him in private, his urges twining through Hux’s thoughts… Hux didn’t want to stay, was quite done with Death Star wreckage for the day, but arousal pooled in his belly despite himself, and he knew Ren could see it. The rush of feeling Ren’s arousal alongside his own was heady.

“I feel it, too. I want to try it, Hux.”

Hux shifted, baring his neck to Ren. Ren took the hint and kissed him, pressing his lips and nipping gently down his neck, pausing to run his tongue over Hux’s pulse point.

Hux could feel his own heart hammering, could feel Ren’s want, and it was… it was a lot. The things Ren could do to him. The things Ren could show him, now that they shared thoughts. Whatever he had done, the shifting of the air and the _pull_ to get Hux into this room. 

Hux frowned, opening his eyes. That. Had felt like… a shifting of the air. And then a _push_-

Ren made a small noise as he was propelled away, his body colliding with the bed further up the wall. The look of astonishment on his face would have been comical, had Hux not been nearly as shocked himself. They stared at each other, Hux very much aware of his own open-mouth surprise. Some small part of his mind was registering just how easy that was, and that it required no effort to hold Ren against the mattress.

Ren’s arms were pinned to his sides, and he flexed his hands and rolled his head experimentally. His expression of utter shock lingered. Something bubbled up inside Hux, and he laughed. It felt right. He’d lived, and he’d just pinned the Supreme Leader to a mattress with the Force, and neither of them knew what to make of it.

Ren looked even more startled by Hux’s laugh than he had been by the Force pull. Hux grinned up at him, but his confidence faltered slightly when he felt the genuine warmth that flooded his thoughts. He looked away, forcing his expression more neutral, then covered his discomfort by stepping over the open doorway in the floor and standing just below the bed, tilting his face up to Ren again.

“Good. You feel it, too. In that case, I’d also like to test my new abilities.” He smirked again, unable to contain his own smugness at the show of power.

Far from being angry at being thrown around and pinned by Hux, Ren seemed intrigued. “What do you want to try?”

Hux stared at the bed. Truthfully, he was unwilling to try any Force trick on himself, so he glanced around, looking for something to stand on. There was a chair in the corner of the room, so he positioned it under the foot of the bed, using the height to hoist himself up, standing on the footboard, Ren pinned to the mattress in front of him.

“This,” Hux said, his fingers at Ren’s belt. He pried the buckle open and pulled it from the loops in Ren’s tunic. It still had the hilt of Ren’s lightsaber attached to it, but he flung it over the side of the bed carelessly. He heard it clatter against the wall below them.

“Can you free yourself?”

Ren frowned. “I don’t want to. I might hurt you.”

Hux rolled his eyes, not entirely sure that Ren wasn’t exaggerating. But he also wasn’t willing to explore how Force sensitivity could be painful, given what he knew of Ren’s experiences.

His fingers moved to Ren’s tunic, opening it to expose his suspenders and undershirt below. Ren, for reasons Hux could never determine, did not wear a full-length undershirt, so opening the tunic exposed his muscular stomach. Hux refused to be impressed, and pushed the thought away before it could form. Instead, he rested a palm over Ren’s bare skin and glanced back up into his face, frowning.

“Can you free your arms to do the rest?” Hux asked, not sure if he could do that without releasing Ren completely, which he wasn’t willing to do just yet.

A corner of Ren's mouth twitched, but his expression remained otherwise indifferent. “Do it for me.”

“I’ve heard you struggle with control,” Hux drawled, leaning as far back as he could without stepping off the footboard of the bed. “But if you need someone who has less than a day’s experience, I can assist.”

Ren flexed his hands again, surprisingly unaffected by Hux’s taunting. “If that’s what you need to believe. But you should try it.”

It was an annoying complication when he only wanted into Ren’s pants, but Hux tried anyway. It seemed a simple matter - evaluating the Force around Ren and parting it where his arms met the mattress. He was able to move Ren far enough to pull his tunic away, push the suspenders over his shoulders, and all but tear the ridiculous cropped undershirt from his broad chest. 

He pushed Ren back again, satisfied. Ren was now bare from the waist up, scars and muscle twisting across his broad chest that told the story of his life, just for Hux. His hair was loose, framing his face, bisected by another scar and dotted with the moles that made him so distinctive. His mouth was slightly open, his lips parted, expression more curious than anything.

Hux took everything in at a glance, then raised a palm and twitched his fingers, pinning Ren’s wrists above his head. “Should I try this as well?”

Ren flexed his hands again, tilting his head up to look at his bound hands. “I see that you excel as always, General.”

Hux clenched his jaw, searching for the proper comeback, or some way to take his new powers further. Using them successfully was heady, especially while Ren was being so docile. What else could he do, then? If the Force was a matter of control, could he influence pressure? Temperature? 

He started small, narrowing his eyes and twitching the fingers of his outstretched hand, bringing thumb and forefinger together in an unconscious gesture of what he was trying to do.

In response, Ren made a startled, high-pitched sound, then swore, his face coloring. “What was that?”

“What did it feel like?”

“It felt like you pinched my nipple with ice. Why?”

“Because I don’t lack imagination.” He studied Ren’s chest a moment, satisfied by the raised hairs and the perked nipple. His eyes moved lower, to the waist of Ren’s pants.

“You would have killed me if I’d tried to do this to you,” Ren murmured, sounding annoyed. Hux reached out to check his thoughts again, not wishing to push Ren too far, and found only indistinct fondness. He withdrew immediately. He wasn’t sure that he liked the ease or intimacy of that, and was still trying to decide how much, and how often Ren did this to him before he was so aware of it.

Hux frowned, but tipped his head and responded. “Of course. I would have killed you immediately. You would have been overstepping. Can you free yourself now?”

Ren huffed. “Yes. But couldn’t you have lied about killing me?”

“You know my limits.”

“Do I?” Ren studied him, expression once again inscrutable.

Hux once again rested his palm on Ren’s stomach, against warm skin and firm muscle, then dragged his fingertips further up his chest. “Don’t you? You can read my thoughts and intentions more clearly now, yes?”

“That doesn’t mean they make sense.”

“No?” Hux was intrigued by this idea. “What am I thinking now?”

Ren’s brow drew down. “You’re aroused, but more curious. I’m disturbed by it. I’d rather you were thinking of me.”

Hux laughed aloud again, and immediately felt Ren’s strong response - warmth, fondness. Ren had been telling the truth on the escape vessel about Hux’s laughter, and it was disconcerting to see his honest feelings so clearly. 

He managed to cover his mouth with a hand and stop himself. With the other hand, he leaned in, pressing Ren more firmly into the mattress.

“I’m thinking of you. Do you think I’d wish to do this to anyone else?”

Ren took a moment to consider. “Maybe. If you wanted revenge against someone, I think you might seduce them and kill them like this.”

That pleased Hux even more, since the idea hadn’t occurred to him. “My former lovers have all known their place. Those that didn’t were… taught.”

“Hux. Please. Your dirty talk is terrible.”

“So is yours.” Hux removed his palm from Ren’s chest, which was beginning to grow warm even in the stale, vaguely chilly air of the room. He dropped his hands to his belt, removing the two lightsabers and holding the smooth, oddly beautiful hilts up between them.

Ren visibly recoiled, grimacing and shaking his head as his thoughts spiked erratically. “Don’t touch those.”

“They don’t have any power over me. You made that up, remember? I want to learn how to use them. You’ll teach me.”

“Will I? Are you planning on sweeping the battlefield with those?”

“Did Sheev Palpatine? I assume he was still quite deadly with them.”

Ren relaxed at that, a smile quirking his lips again. “I don’t think anyone knows. But he still had them, I guess.” Ren flexed his shoulders in something that might have been a shrug, had he not been pinned so tightly. Hux’s eyes still followed the motion. “But yeah, I can teach you how to use a lightsaber. You won’t be better than me, though.”

Hux’s eyebrows went up at the challenge, and he succumbed to impulse again, flicking the switches with his thumbs to activate the blades. They shot smoothly from the hilts, silent, far more elegant than Ren’s.

“Mine are bigger,” he said, unable once again to keep the smirk off his face.

Ren, still unsettled by them, still smirked at the innuendo, his face washed in the red light from the twin plasma blades. “I could have sworn mine was bigger.”

Hux deactivated the weapons, bringing one of the hilts closer to his face to examine it more carefully in the low light. Both hilts had elegant curved designs that served as the grip, accented with gold inlays. The gold and silver ornament hadn't diminished with time or exposure, and the curved ends and weight were beautifully balanced in both his palms. 

_As if they’d been designed for him_. He pushed the thought away, glancing back up at Ren.

“How are the hilts designed?”

Ren frowned. “Do you think I care about that?”

Hux glanced over the footboard, down to where Ren’s lightsaber had been discarded. “No. You don’t even care enough to conceal the wiring.”

“I care that it’s effective.”

Hux held one of the hilts up again, tipping it to catch the dim light from the viewport. “Remind you of anything?”

“A lightsaber,” Ren said, voice growing tighter. “Put those away so we can get back to you holding me to the bed with the Force.”

“I was just thinking this was very phallic,” Hux replied evenly, looking up to catch Ren’s gaze again. “I had something that looked just like this when I received my first commission. And it wasn’t a weapon.”

It took Ren a moment to understand what Hux was implying, and when he finally did, he scowled, looking disgusted. “You aren’t getting those anywhere near my ass.” He shifted slightly against the bed, and the lightsabers flew from Hux’s hands, landing somewhere below, thudding dully onto Ren’s discarded tunic.

Hux _tsk_ed, but took Ren’s rejection in stride, stepping in closer to open Ren’s pants. “I would have enjoyed that.”

“Seriously?” Ren was incredulous. After a moment, he shook his head. “You are. You would have fucked me with them. Or, rather, you wanted each of us to use one inside the other.”

“Have you never tried that?”

“With my _lightsaber_?” Ren asked, voice loud and ringing in the empty quarters. Hux schooled his amused expression, seeing well enough in his thoughts and body that his arousal had fled.

“Your lightsaber isn’t suited for it. But no, I didn’t mean that, I meant have you ever used a toy to masturbate with.” Hux pulled Ren’s pants down over his hips, then lingered a moment, grunting in frustration as he realized he would need to pull Ren’s boots off first to remove them. He did so, dropping everything to the floor below them, then running his palms up Ren’s generous thighs, pausing with his thumbs on either side of his cock, which was beginning to fill out again.

Ren shifted, and Hux could feel him pull against the Force bonds that Hux held around his waist, shoulders, and wrists. In response, Hux tightened everything and pulled Ren more fully against the mattress, studying Ren’s face for a reaction. Ren grunted, his cock twitching, scowling at Hux.

“No, I don't use toys. When I wanted sex, I found a real person.”

“How nice for you. I found other people’s skill lacking.”

“Really.” Ren’s voice had taken on an interested tone. Hux paused a moment, then knelt in front of him on the footboard. 

“You seem to like it well enough when I do it for you,” Ren continued, predictably. Hux rolled his eyes.

“I like your cock,” Hux said dismissively. “I told you. I prefer large cocks. Prefabricated works just as well as the real thing.” The sleeves of his tunic slipped down to his elbows, baring his pale forearms as he slid his fingers and palms along Ren’s hips, touched the trail of hair below his navel and followed it down. He was still wearing the rich, unfamiliar black tunic. He thought about removing it, as it seemed a shame to spoil something that had belonged to the Emperor. But it did smell like it had been in a forest for thirty years, and he supposed he would never wear it again.

“I wouldn’t know,” Ren continued. “I’ve never met anyone with a cock as big as mine. Yours definitely isn’t.”

Hux leaned forward, shifting his right hand down to grip the base of Ren’s nearly full erection, lips poised just at the tip. It really was an excellent cock - big and curved, just as thick as Hux liked. And Ren ejaculated fluid excessively, more than any other person Hux had met, more than most holoporn he’d watched. It was impressive enough to have overcome Hux’s hatred, annoyance, and desire to kill the man when they first began their arrangement.

Now?

“Mine definitely isn’t,” Hux repeated quietly, being careful to exhale on the sensitive head of Ren’s cock, just so. He looked up into Ren's face. “Maybe we can work on that today.”

He twitched the fingers of his unoccupied left hand, considered the shape and flow of the Force very carefully, imagined it as vaguely finger-shaped, firm, probing Ren’s entrance. He held Ren's eye as he did it.

Ren made a low startled sound in his chest, jerking against his Force bonds, his cock jumping in Hux’s hand.

“You-” Ren began, voice high, looking down at Hux wide-eyed. “You’ve never once offered to go anywhere near my ass.”

“Have you ever been fucked before? I never asked.”

“No, you didn’t,” Ren answered sourly, closing his eyes. “But yeah. I’ve done that before.”

Hux momentarily neglected Ren’s cock, twitching the fingers of his left hand carefully, pushing the sensation of pressure further past Ren’s rim. “And did you enjoy it?”

Ren inhaled a shaky breath. Hux could sense, _feel_ between them that Ren was suddenly, shockingly aroused - both because Hux had taken control, and because Hux was doing something so unspeakable with the gift he’d been given.

“You’re the one who wanted to come in here,” Hux answered in response to Ren’s unspoken thoughts.

“I-” Ren said tightly, his voice low. “I didn’t think you’d do _this_.”

Once inside Ren, the use of the Force seemed to require less concentration. He twisted his fingers and went deeper with a simple thought. He considered, then tried a gentle warmth, a rippling sensation that began at Ren's entrance and slowly spread inside. Smirking, he stimulated Ren’s prostate directly, and Ren shouted, jerking hard against where he was held.

“Hux,” he shouted, sucking in breath, eyes closed, face growing red. “How can you- how are you doing this-”

“I… don’t know.” He frowned. He didn't, not really, he only knew that he could.

“You shouldn’t be able to.” Ren was sweating now, and Hux paused, sensing in his thoughts that Ren needed to collect himself, that Hux was pushing him in other ways that were proving difficult.

“I used to… I’ve trained people before, who were Force sensitive-”

“Before you killed them all?”

“_Hux_,” Ren said, exasperated, and Hux let him continue. “Yes, before I killed them all. Sensitivity is a slow process. It takes time to grasp the Force, and its more profound-”

“Ren. I have less patience for being told of my limits than you do. And there’s nothing profound or philosophical about what we’re doing right now.”

“It shouldn’t be possible!” he insisted. “You’re holding me in place like it’s nothing, simulating physical form, controlling temperature… I’m not even sure I could do all this at the same time!”

“I suppose all that is simple, compared to throwing the Emperor out of my own mind.” Hux wasn’t very interested in Ren’s point at the moment, but it was true that it all came very easily to him - holding Ren in place, pressing down on him. Being inside him. Maybe Ren was right, and it should have been harder. But somehow, it made sense.

Hux liked being good at things. Especially a thing that Ren had formerly been exclusively entitled to. He pushed harder inside Ren to stop that particular conversation. He coaxed Ren’s hole wider, massaging his prostate in a way that should have been impossible, but seemed in the moment like an excellent idea.

Ren jerked again, shouting loudly. The sight of him, naked and flushed and undone, entirely at Hux’s mercy, made Hux’s stomach clench and his cock throb. He didn’t feel the need to touch himself, not yet. The power he now had over Ren was heady, and he thoroughly enjoyed holding himself over Ren so completely, and being able to sense in his thoughts how much it affected him, how he might beg if Hux asked for it.

Instead, he closed his eyes, imagining the Force inside Ren larger, wider, thrusting now less like fingers and more like a cock, big and thick. The texture could be rough, not quite like a human cock, but still good. And always, the right kind of touch to just the right place.

“Have you ever done this to someone?” Hux asked between Ren’s increasingly anguished cries, curious despite himself.

“Have I-” Ren began, sucking in a breath as Hux thrust in again, letting a noise out low in his chest. “No, this is… blasphemy, I don’t know how-”

“Blasphemy?” Hux was incredulous and genuinely shocked. “I didn’t think you were a believer.”

“I don’t have to- believe, it’s real whether- I believe it or not,” Ren said tightly, straining more vigorously against his Force bonds now. Hux lost his concentration on Ren’s ass, and Ren made a defeated sound, sighing, then scowling at Hux.

“So it’s blasphemy because you lacked the creativity to imagine it?” Hux looked back to Ren’s cock, fully erect and nearly purple, leaking liberally at the tip. He thought about giving Ren a prostate orgasm, then fucking himself on his cock. Ren made a disbelieving noise, and he looked back into his face.

“I can see every one of your filthy thoughts,” Ren sneered, voice and words at odds with his flushed face and bitten lips. “I knew you liked cock, I had no idea you were such a degenerate.”

“It’s not my fault that you want for imagination.” Hux stood. This was more like what they normally did during sex, and it made things easier. He glanced down to Ren’s cock again, stroking it with his fingertips, realizing that there was no lubricant. Regretfully, he began thinking of other uses for Ren’s generous erection.

“Now who has no imagination,” Ren asked, closing his eyes and twitching his fingers where they were pinned near his hip. There was a nightstand bolted to the floor next to the bed, the magnetically sealed drawers still closed. Both of them flew open, the pull of gravity spilling their contents past the footboard of the bed to make small thumping noises on the wall below them. A loud ringing sound announced that a large object had fallen through the open doorway and into the dark hall beyond the chamber.

After a moment, there was a small sound as a clear bottle made contact with one of Ren’s big palms. He opened his eyes, grinning again.

“Lube.”

Hux rolled his eyes. “From a dead person’s drawer? A thirty-year-old bottle? I’m sure it’s long dried out.”

Ren’s eyebrows went up. “Don’t underestimate the engineers of the Death Star. The best Imperial scientists probably developed this lube.” He made a motion with his wrist. “It still feels like there’s some in there, anyway.”

Hux clenched his jaw, pushing down the thought that immediately sprung into his mind. Ren barked a laugh, pulling against his Force bonds again.

“Who are you trying to fool? I see it, Hux. No need to hide from me.”

Hux closed his eyes, exasperated. Ren said the same thing to people he was torturing. Still, he opened his eyes and put his own palm out, and gave in to the childish impulse to pull the lube into his hand with the Force. It hit with a satisfying weight. As Ren said, it was a surprisingly large bottle, nearly full, labeled "_personal_."

Hux sighed, disappointed with himself for even considering using it. 

“Don’t act like you don’t want it,” Ren goaded, leaning as far forward as he could. “This whole thing is your fantasy now. Are you just going to leave it here?” He settled back, scowling. “If you are, at least suck my cock. You’re always good at that.”

“I’m not putting my mouth on your cock,” Hux bit out, resolved to that now. “In fact, I’m not going to touch you.”

He didn’t need to. He twitched the fingers of his free hand, sending a rippling sensation down Ren’s aching cock. Ren sucked in an unsteady breath, easing back into the mattress.

“Whatever you’re going to do, fucking _hurry_. You’re always the one that says I take too long.”

“You do.” Hux actually preferred a slower pace, and suspected Ren knew that. Still, he had never admitted that aloud, and insulting Ren's pace was entertaining. He perfunctorily undid his pants, considering the best way to begin.

“Don’t think,” Ren said, voice rising, sounding more frustrated. “This will be a lot worse if I have to watch you run strategical analysis on my cock. Touch it, or don’t.”

Hux slid his pants and boots off, uncharacteristically kicking everything off the bed and onto the floor below, his new lightsabers included. Pausing, he lifted the new tunic over his head and tossed it away, self-consciously touching the front of his chest, where he normally wore his dogtags. Sheev Palpatine had discarded them, of course, and Hux felt ridiculously naked without them.

“You are naked. Fucking finally. Hurry.”

Hux frowned, stepping closer to Ren. “They’re needed,” he said defensively, hating that Ren had seen the thought. “No good soldier takes them off.”

“They’re needed if you die. The odds of that happening keep going up the longer you wait. Don’t worry though, I’ll be able to identify the body.” 

Hux flipped the bottle of lubricant open, his gaze tracing Ren’s mouth, the line of his throat, his broad shoulders pulled taut against the Force bindings, his big chest. At the beginning, Hux had only tolerated Ren’s taunts in bed because of his body. At some point, that had stopped being true. As he squeezed lube into his palm, he scowled, sensing Ren's smugness about Hux’s complimentary thoughts.

“Of course I think you’re attractive. Why bother with you otherwise?” He smeared the lube on his fingers, not looking at Ren, still considering how he wanted to begin.

“Just saying.”

“You’re _just saying_ nothing. You are reading my thoughts.” He tightened the muscles of his jaw, glancing up. “You could see everything the whole time, of course. This is what you do.”

Ren huffed, annoyed and impatient. “Not everything the whole time. I could always read your emotions. Not as much your distinctive thoughts, no. You of all people know that I couldn't do that without you sensing it.”

“You’re doing it now. Very easily.”

“We’re… bonded now, okay? That’s what happened back there. I told you. We balance each other out, so it’s easy to… uh, share thoughts.” Ren glanced away. “Look, can we do this some other time? When we aren’t both naked?”

Hux’s thoughts shied away from the word _bond_, and the shared experience of whatever Ren had guided them through back on the escape vessel. Ren was right, of course, and he felt his own arousal diminish.

“Enough,” Hux said aloud, deciding to end the foreplay and unnecessary conversation. He leaned forward and pushed a knee into the mattress next to Ren’s hip, lifting his thigh to give himself access to his own ass, probing his entrance with a finger. He huffed a breath as he breached himself, then closed his eyes to focus his thoughts on Ren again. He held Ren’s shoulder with his free hand, concentrating on Ren’s body, a body he knew better than anyone else. He wondered if he could he pleasure Ren as he stretched himself, with the fingers of his hand up his ass.

The answer turned out to be yes. Hux smirked, keeping his eyes closed as Ren made a high keening noise in response to the sudden pressure inside him, the illusion of the big cock up his ass, one with no friction, one that pushed Ren apart from the inside, opening him more and more while stroking over just the right spot.

Hux was annoyed that he couldn’t pleasure himself well at his current angle, but he found it surprisingly easy to conjure the correct sensations for Ren while he prepared himself. He generally fantasized about getting fucked when he did this to himself anyway, so he simply shifted those thoughts to what he was doing to Ren. It took little effort to slip the second and third fingers inside himself, and much more concentration to imagine the cock inside Ren moving faster and harder.

Ren was close, nearly to the edge of the tighter, more consuming orgasm that came with prostate stimulation. Hux always craved this, could rarely accomplish it himself and was nearly jealous of Ren in the moment. It was apparent that Ren had never done it himself, which was even better.

Ren’s thoughts were a blur of intense pleasure, punctuated by the desperate urge to touch himself. Hux tightened the hold around his wrists, pausing his attentions on himself and momentarily losing focus on what he was doing inside Ren. Ren’s arousal was a distraction in itself, one that Hux was finding increasingly difficult to push away. Ren's desire to touch his own cock became Hux's own, a maddening impulse he'd schooled in himself long ago. He decided to stop the thrusting, concentrating instead on that single jolting point of pleasure until Ren was shouting, frustrated, and in complete disbelief that Hux could do such a thing to him. He came while shouting Hux’s name, and Hux had to hold his breath and clench his abdomen to keep the sensation of Ren’s orgasm out of his head.

“You… bastard,” Ren gasped, his thoughts slowing, but his frustration still apparent. “How did you do that?”

“I told you I was good,” Hux answered, managing to keep his voice steady. He opened his eyes again, studying Ren, his gaze dropping to his cock. Hux hadn’t ever bothered to try this on someone else to know how others reacted, but he saw that Ren was still half-hard, and had only dribbled a small amount of fluid rather than a full ejaculation. His eyes snapped back to Ren’s face, noticing briefly that his scar was standing out pale and livid against his flush. “Do you need a moment?”

Ren was breathless, his expression stormy. “Do I need a moment,” he repeated flatly between breaths. “Do I-” he paused, his thoughts jumping, and Hux frowned, momentarily unable to see Ren's distinct thoughts. Ren was physically exhausted and overwhelmed. He had been injured badly by whatever Palpatine had done in Hux’s body, and Hux could sense the residual aches from the abuse making themselves known. Though Ren had taken the question as mockery, Hux had asked in earnest - bringing Ren off that way had been more satisfying than Hux had anticipated, given that he could now experience Ren’s orgasms secondhand. Hux would be content enough with Ren jerking him off or sucking him.

Instead, Ren closed his eyes, taking a deep breath in, then pushing it out slowly. Shockingly, his head cleared in a way that Hux didn’t think he was capable of. His spinning thoughts calmed, then disappeared, and his anger and frustrations vanished along with his arousal and the satisfaction that Hux had worked so hard to give him. The low-level aches vanished as well, along with his fatigue, leaving almost nothing behind.

Ren opened his eyes, and his empty thoughts filled immediately with smug self-satisfaction as he grinned, his crooked teeth briefly visible. “I did need a moment. I’m ready.”

“What was that?” Hux asked, his voice unsteady.

“Meditation.”

“I thought you couldn’t do that.”

Ren flexed his shoulders again, another partial shrug. “It seemed like a good day to start again. I’m sick of everyone telling me what I can’t do.”

He flexed his shoulders again, and Hux felt him gently pushing away Hux’s hold on him, breaking it. It wasn’t painful, just… _firm_, a pressure, and then there was nothing there. Hux made a low noise in his throat, unsure what to make of that as Ren reached forward, wrapping his big hands around Hux’s ass and putting his mouth near his ear.

“You’re lucky I’m in a good mood. That should have hurt.”

Hux huffed, amused. “Careful, Ren. I’m a bad enemy to have.”

Ren’s teeth sank briefly into Hux’s earlobe, and Hux shivered, distracted by Ren’s closeness, his arms around his body and his hands on his ass. 

“Hold onto my shoulders. Use the Force again to push me against the mattress along my back and waist. I’ll hold you up.”

Hux blinked, realizing suddenly that it would be difficult, if not impossible, for Ren to fuck him while Hux was holding him prone against a wall. 

“Shit,” he muttered, not wanting to admit it aloud.

“The Supreme Leader is wise,” Ren said evenly, taking one hand and dragging his fingers through Hux’s hair. Hux jerked back violently away from Ren’s touch, annoyed, putting his own hand in his hair.

“Don’t do that,” he muttered. “We need to go back after this.”

Ren’s expression softened again, and he felt something inside Ren loosen and reach out, pulling at Hux in a way that Hux should not have allowed. Hux thought of the _bond_ that they had both avoided earlier, and Ren pursed those lips of his, licked them, then paused. Hux knew the next thing out of his mouth would be something they’d both regret.

“Your hair. Please,” he murmured, tipping his head forward and closing his eyes, obviously unable to look at Hux as he asked. “It’s terrible like this. I like it better when it’s loose.” He looked up again, and his eyes were soft and brown and imploring. Hux hated it. “_Please_.”

Hux was struck speechless by the request, but he allowed it when Ren brought his hand up again and gently combed his fingers through his hair. It was combed and styled straight back, something that Hux never did, preferring to part it precisely. Whatever product Sheev Palpatine had used to style it (something that he’d apparently taken with him in an escape vessel, which seemed odd), Ren pulled his fingers through it until it was completely loose, taking his time. More time than Hux should have allowed.

Because Ren was insufferable, when he was finished he leaned forward and gave him a gentle kiss, his mouth hot and soft against Hux's. Hux could only allow so much, so he pulled away after a moment, pushing his now-loose hair out of his face and trying to ignore those dangerous lips.

“Is that quite enough?” he asked, his voice lower than he’d intended. With a thought, he pinned Ren to the mattress using the Force, concentrating just on his back this time. “Can we get on with it?”

Ren smiled, and it was small this time, his thoughts unbearably sentimental. “Okay. But I’m probably not going to last very long.”

Hux was sure he wouldn’t either. He could feel how open he was, and though he’d been trying not to think about it, he was hard and aching, and wanted more of Ren than he ever had before.

“Of course you aren’t going to last,” he said instead, and Ren’s grin widened as Hux wrapped his arms around his neck.

The position was an awkward one, but Hux couldn’t deny that Ren holding him in his arms and against his body was extremely arousing. Ren supported him as Hux shifted, pulling his legs up and bracing his knees against the mattress. He reached down, finding Ren’s big cock fully erect. He should say something biting, something to dismiss the tension, but what was the point? Ren could read his thoughts, and already knew how eager Hux was for this.

They were both silent as they shifted, eager to make the position work. Hux’s Force hold was all that was keeping them from falling forward. Ren was physically supporting Hux, which Hux should not have allowed - Ren could drop him, either accidentally or intentionally. But he couldn’t force himself to care about it now. He was overwhelmed by Ren’s face so close to his, his arms around Ren’s shoulders and neck, muscles shifting and straining as he adjusted his grip against Hux’s ass. Their chests were pressed together, hot and close, and their thoughts were intertwined. 

It occurred to Hux that it would be difficult to be any closer to Ren, physically or emotionally. At the thought, Ren made a noise and leaned in to kiss him, gently again, the sentimental tug between them making Hux’s heart hurt. 

Hux hated giving himself this way, despite the fact that he knew he already had. There was too much trust involved, and Hux trusted no one. He didn’t. He shouldn’t. He truly _shouldn't_, and he knew better. Ren had very recently proved himself a traitor. But then again, Hux was an expert at knowing exactly how far people could be trusted. What Ren had done hadn’t been a surprise, not really. Hux would have done it, too. And now that they had their _bond_, Ren would never be able to violate his trust again.

It was weak justification, and part of him knew that. But in the moment, he wanted to believe it.

Hux had been generous with the lube inside himself earlier, and his hand was still slick as he coated Ren’s cock and slowly sank down. Ren’s grip on him tightened, and Hux closed his eyes so he wouldn’t have to look at Ren’s expression. Still, he could feel Ren’s thoughts, and Ren was as overwhelmed as he was. They said nothing as Hux seated himself, taking a moment before he set the rhythm, using his legs to ride Ren against the wall. Gravity and the position made the angle a problem, but Hux grunted as he felt Ren’s cock slide in perfectly, satisfied as he quickened his pace and began panting, feeling the stretch as Ren's thick cock pushed him nearly to the point of pain.

They were both silent, the only sounds between them the low involuntary grunts, the sharp intake of breath, the slap of skin against skin. But they both registered the silence for what it was - the lack of insults, the things they had said to each other before. This was not how they had sex.

They could still do it. It would still be as arousing as it ever was, and it might dispel some of the tension between them. Hux opened his mouth to say something, but felt Ren’s thoughts shy away from the idea. Ren offered him the vague sense of a memory in reply - Palpatine’s insults from Hux’s mouth, and that Ren couldn’t stop thinking about that. Hux huffed, amused and breathless as he rode Ren harder, pushing both of them closer.

It would be funny, if Hux hadn’t also been so profoundly upset by what had happened with Palpatine, and learning that he was only a clone. It was repugnant and shocking in a way that Hux wasn’t allowing himself to think about. He would have immediately terminated any officer who had originated that way, simply because they would have lied their way through training and wasted the Order’s time and resources. 

Hux lost his momentum, his rhythm slowing atop Ren as he let himself be distracted by the negative thoughts. Ren could call him a clone, here and now, and it would be worse than anything Hux had been called in his life - bastard, weak, conniving, selfish, bitter, overreaching, too ambitious. And it would be true.

“I don’t care,” Ren said thinly, through the huff of his breath. 

It was awful that Hux knew he didn’t, and that he _did_. He knew exactly how much Ren cared.

A broken sound escaped Ren as he pulled that from Hux’s thoughts, and Ren came a second time. The sensation of Ren’s climax was enough, and more than enough, to push Hux over the edge of his own. After the distraction, the orgasm was too much, and he squeezed his eyes shut, clenching his jaw and squeezing himself hard around Ren’s dick, feeling Ren come inside him as he forced himself to breathe, to concentrate, to _focus_ and not get carried away.

Eventually, his thoughts slowed, and he was left merely exhausted and breathless, a slight headache in the wake of what they had done. They stayed still as they collected themselves, Hux extremely aware of being held in Ren’s arms, which had begun to shake with the effort of holding Hux up.

“You thought I would drop you,” Ren commented casually. “You should have been worried that you’d drop both of us. If you’d lost your hold on the Force, we would have both fallen.

Hux had forgotten about that. He stretched his legs and pushed himself off Ren’s cock, feeling the fluid leak from inside himself, frowning and looking with regret toward the ‘fresher door. The ‘fresher wouldn’t work without power or water, but it was also perched sideways and inaccessible in the wall halfway across the room.

“You’re right. But I didn’t drop us. And you wouldn’t have allowed that, anyway.” He realized it was true as he said it. He looked down to the wall where the entrance was, toward the discarded clothes and his boots, eager for the chance to recover them with the Force. He shifted to the side and twisted from Ren's big hands and arms, his bare feet hitting the footboard with a creaking noise.

Ren grunted, pushing against the mattress, and Hux released his own hold on Ren. Ren hit the footboard hard next to him, causing it to groan ominously under his weight. Hux held his breath, but the bedframe held. Reliable Imperial engineering indeed.

They both looked up from their bare feet simultaneously, catching each other off-guard. Ren’s expression was open and vulnerable, the same as it always was after sex. It had taken Hux a long time to realize Ren's vulnerable expression was the absence of unhappiness on his features, something that was otherwise a constant. As if Ren was satisfied, and confused by it.

Hux had always suspected that Ren didn’t know that about himself, that the Supreme Leader of the First Order didn’t seem to know what to do with intimacy. If he didn’t know that before, he knew now. Hux rolled his shoulders, disconcerted, but didn’t take his eyes from Ren’s.

Unexpectedly, Ren edged closer, laying one of his calloused palms on Hux’s bare arm and encircling his elbow with his long fingers. With the other hand, he ran his thumb along Hux’s collarbone, then up the line of his neck. Hux shivered and tilted his head to the side, hating himself. If Ren’s post-coital weakness was that he didn’t know how to feel after sex, Hux’s was that he found almost any sort of touch unbearably intimate.

Ren drew him closer, and Hux crossed his arms in front of his chest as Ren’s arms encircled him, one of his palms finding the back of Hux’s head, his fingers stroking his loose hair.

_I’m sorry_, Ren thought into the privacy of their new bond. Hux knew. Ren was sorry for the day, for bringing them to the moon, sorry that he’d betrayed Hux, sorry that he’d told Hux he was a clone.

And, also, he was sorry that he wasn’t better at _this_, the bond between them now.

Hux sighed. He was sorry about it, too. But he shifted his arms and wrapped them around Ren’s waist, cursing his weakness as he dipped his head and rested his forehead against his bare chest. Ren tucked his chin over Hux’s head and drew him closer.

It was absurd, really. Both what had happened to them, and what they had done. That they had retreated to some intact section of the Death Star, that Hux had done unspeakable things with the Force, and that they were embracing, completely naked in a filthy bedroom that still had an intact bed, silent and unable to speak to any of it.

Well. At least they were the same.


End file.
